Dead Fantasy Novella
by Ronnin-ActionWriter1
Summary: A novelization and continuation of the Dead Fantasy series by Monty Oum. I hope do the series and Monty justice in my writing. When Kasumi and Ayane suddenly appear before Yuna one day, she prepares herself for a fight. But what purpose do these old enemies have in attacking now?
1. Dead Fantasy I

**Author's Note: This fanfic is a novelization and continuation of Monty Oum's Dead Fantasy series begun on the anniversary of this great man's passing, February 1st, 2016, in honor of him for The Monty Oum Project. That being said, I could still use some help with this. While I did my best researching and watching let's plays of Dead or Alive, I am still by no means an expert on the characters. So if anyone that knows Dead or Alive better than me and would like to help me in this endeavor, please send me a PM stating your interest.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I own nothing nothing found in this story, all rights go to their respective owners.**

 _Dead Fantasy Novella I_

Rasping for breath while running through temple ruins, the gunner Yuna attempted to escape her pursuers. She jumped a gap along the broken bridge as two shadowy figures ran after her along either side of her path. Eventually, she saw a light in a doorway just ahead of her. "A way out?" She wondered, but upon coming to the other side of the doorway found it was just a more open space within the temple, chains holding up certain portions. "Great, what now?" She wondered aloud.

Just then, a flower petal floated down from overhead, even though there shouldn't be any kind of flowers in this place. However, the flower petal glowed and in its place, a blue garbed ninja appeared before her, and next to her, a kunoichi dressed in a short purple dress tied by a red ribbon dropped in from above. Yuna knew who they were, the one in blue was Kasumi, and the one in purple her half-sister Ayane, although why they were currently pursuing her was something she didn't know.

"Hold on," Ayane spoke to Yuna.

"We need to talk." Kasumi added, but while steadying her breathing, Yuna pulled out her twin pistols, showing she had nothing to say to them. "Oh great." Ayane muttered as she pulled out her tokkosho and Kasumi her sword.

"Guess we're doing this the hard way." Kasumi sighed. "Go!" She told her sister, who immediately charged forward while she teleported from where she stood.

Yuna began shooting at Ayane, but the kunoichi jumped up and behind her without being hit. Ayane swung her tokkosho at Yuna, but the gunner flipped away and turned just in time to see and block Kasumi's sword with her guns as the ninja appeared behind her. She fired at close range, but Kasumi arched her back to just narrowly avoid the bullets and slash her sword down.

Yuna avoided it and kicked at Kasumi, who ducked and rolled away as Ayane came up and attacked with her tokkosho again. Again, Yuna dodged and fired her pistols in return, but Ayane deflected them by spinning her tokkosho around in front of her as Kasumi swooped in over her and struck. Yuna stopped to block the blade and hurdle over Kasumi, shooting at her while rolling back to her feet.

Ayane stabbed down at her while she was still rolling, but Yuna kicked herself to the side and down to the next level of the temple before charging a Burst Shot as she turned back on them. But before she could fire, Kasumi appeared in front of her, knocked the guns upward, grabbed Yuna's shoulder, and rolled over her, brining Yuna down onto her legs where she thrust Yuna into the air.

"Do it." Kasumi told her partner as Ayane jumped to her feet, allowing her half-sister to use her as a stepping stone to jump as Yuna.

Yuna cringed and balled up as the attack came, but before anything happened, someone else suddenly swooped in and nabbed Ayane's tokkosho right out of her hands, pushing her down while Yuna landed on her feet.  
"Thanks a million, Rikku." Yuna said as her Al Bhed cousin landed next to her

"Don't mention it." Rikku replied with a smug grin before tossing Ayane back her weapon. "Take it." She said, evidentially wanting a fair fight, and took out her dual knives as Yuna once more readied her guns. "Alright Yunie, let's drop these losers."

Yuna chuckled at her cousin's brazenness. "You got it." She agreed as Ayane clicked her tongue and span her tokkosho while Kasumi charged her ninpo.

The four fighters squared off two-on-two, and then Kasumi and Ayane made the first move, Kasumi taking Yuna while Ayane went for Rikku. The thief flipped back and jumped into the air, severing a chain from a stone scaffolding and allowing it to fall toward Yuna and Kasumi.

Grabbing the chain she severed, she warned her cousin and Yuna ducked out of the way without question.

When Kasumi saw it coming, she prepared her ninpo, but was too little to late, by the time she teleported she had already been hit into the air. But she used the chance and teleported onto the swinging stone scaffold and ran along it to jump at Rikku as she still held onto the dangling chain. The Al Bhed swung herself at Kasumi as well, but when the two met in mid-air, Kasumi got her legs around Rikku's neck and twisted her body back to throw Rikku into the stone scaffold she had just used to hit her.

"Got you!" Ayane shouted as she approached Rikku and slashed at her while she was collapsed on the ground.

But far from out, Rikku pumped herself up and over the blade of Ayane's weapon and swung her knives. "Not today you don't." She retorted, and when her blades were blocked, she kicked Ayane's legs out from under her and flipped herself back as Kasumi attempted to kick her.

Yuna came in from the side, holding Kasumi back as Ayane stayed on Rikku and blocked her next attack as she kicked off a pillar, flipped over her, and attempted to kick Kasumi from above. Kasumi flipped over the thief, jumped off Yuna and then used ninpo to speed back at her, knocking her down as Ayane flipped in and kicked Rikku away.

Yuna quickly rolled back to her feet and shot at Ayane before she could attack Rikku again. Then Kasumi ran in from behind Ayane and struck Yuna away from her just before Rikku kicked the ninja away before dealing with Ayane again.

The kunoichi spun her tokkosho at Rikku's legs, but she flipped over it and after clashing weapons for a moment, Rikku landed a kick to her chin that knocked her off balance for a second just in time to block a blow from Kasumi, at which time Yuna came in and kicked her into Ayane, knocking them both down. "Let's try this again," Yuna said, charging a powerful bullet in her pistols. "Burst Shot!"

She fired, and the bullets exploded behind her attackers, causing them to fly toward her and Rikku so they could kick them back again onto a higher level. Ayane gripped her side as she became more and more frustrated with her targets who ran up at them in order to finish them off. Ayane and Kasumi flipped back to their feet, and then another combatant suddenly entered the fray.

Running in between the sisters at Yuna and Rikku, both flipped back to avoid the new girl in a dark gold tank top and blue jeans as she kicked at them.

The martial artist Hitomi landed behind them and threw a few punches to the air. "So you resisted after all." She said, more as an observation than a question. "No choice then... bring it." She taunted the gunner and thief.

With a quick exchange of glances, Rikku and Yuna jumped over Hitomi so they wouldn't have attackers on both sides of them and the martial artist gave chase. Yuna shot at her, but the bullets missed and Hitomi punched her back as Ayane got in and knocked Rikku back with her.

Kasumi teleported in behind them and back-kicked Rikku into the air just as Yuna got back to her feet with Ayane behind her. Ayane tried to kick her feet out from under her, but the gunner shot her back from close range and jumped over Hitomi's incoming side kick, kicking off her as she shot the martial artist in the head before doing the same to Kasumi in mid air.

Yuna landed on the scaffold dangling from a single chain, caught Rikku as she fell, and tossed her up to the archways above them. To follow up, she then shot the scaffold off the chain and let it crashed onto the temple floor as she jumped up next to her cousin.

As the temple floor began to collapse, Kasumi teleported out of harms way while her allies had to run for it. Kasumi appeared behind Yuna and Rikku on the archway and Ayane ran up the side to jump over them, charging ninpo through her tokkosho and striking it at the ground between the cousins and caused an explosion. Both dodged, and then Ayane blocked, sidestepped, and kicked Rikku into Yuna as she came at her, throwing the gunner off balance so Kasumi could kick and throw her off the archway.

"Yunie!" Rikku cried and quickly grabbed her cousin's arm before she fell and tossed her back onto the archway, where she immediately began shooting at Kasumi again. But then Rikku got up in front of her and pushed her back before a stone pillar flew at the spot she'd been standing.

The pillar crashed through the archway and the section that held Yuna and Ayane up began to fall as a result of Hitomi's attack. The martial artist ran and jumped onto it to help her ally, making Yuna stop shooting to jump back from the archway, but was followed by her attackers.

Hitomi jumped lower and ran up the side of the next archway, got behind Yuna as she fired at Ayane, and kicked off of her to keep her from landing and allow Ayane to use her as a stepping stone to safety as well while Yuna was sent falling into the abyss below.

She called out to her cousin, and seeing it, Rikku quickly grabbed at Kasumi after blocking her next attack, then picked the ninja up and threw her down directly at Yuna. Kasumi used ninpo to teleport, but not before her back struck Yuna, causing her to take both of them back onto the archway into safety.

"Thanks again," Yuna gasped and got to her feet.

Rikku went after Hitomi again, but the martial artist caught her leg and punched her into the air. Kasumi then jumped over her and kicked the thief down as her cousin began shooting at her, but the blue garbed ninja began teleporting over and over again to keep from being hit until she could get close and drive her knee into the gunner's back.

Rikku then charged her and made a few feints before knocking the ninja back, but then Ayane took her place and her weapon clashed with Rikku's. The thief flipped back and over Yuna as she fired a Potshot at Ayane only to have Hitomi jump in at the same time and kick Rikku into her.

At that moment, Hitomi used all her strength and dropkicked the stone archway at a crack in front of her, causing it to break apart and throw Yuna and Rikku into the air. The martial artist then gave the stone slab falling before her a powerful punch, braking it again and sending the pieces flying into the cousins and plowing them out of the temple onto the high bridge that lead towards a long drop off.

Rikku got back to her feet fast and ran back at their attackers, meeting Kasumi as she teleported out in front of the thief. Rikku attacked repeatedly with her knives but was blocked and struck back down as Hitomi ran past and Ayane leapt overhead. The kunoichi then charged her tokkosho with ninpo again and threw it down at Yuna.

The gunner avoided the weapon itself, but not the following explosion of ninpo energy and was blasted into the air, where Hitomi jumped up and kicked her back towards the edge of a huge cliff. Rikku called back to Yuna as she ran to her side as got her back up again.

But they completely outmatched now, before they could even start to gain back any ground, Kasumi and Hitomi jumped over them and kicked off the back of their heads, sending them rolling forward at Ayane. Kasumi then teleported and grabbed Yuna's arm while Ayane grabbed Rikku's and threw the cousins into one another, kicked them in their heads, and let Hitomi sweep kick both of them off their feet.

"We end it here!" Kasumi told her team and all three ran forward at Yuna and Rikku.

And yet, another new fighter suddenly ran up from the cliff side and interrupted the battle again. Running in between Yuna and Rikku, the woman in black brought up her legs, kicking all three enemies away in the same second.

"Tif!?" Rikku spoke with surprise.  
"What are you-?" Yuna began, but was interrupted by Tifa.

"No time to explain." The black garbed monk took a couple steps as she responded to her friends as their attackers got back to their feet and stepped toward them.

They readied themselves for the next round in response, with Yuna bringing up her pistols, Rikku swinging around her knives, and Tifa getting in a fighting stance as the Materia in her arms glowed brightly. "Let's do this."


	2. Dead Fantasy II

Dead Fantasy Novella II

Kasumi, Ayane, and Hitomi

Yuna, Rikku, and Tifa.

The former three had approached and attacked the latter three. Currently however, their reason for doing so was completely unknown. Facing those enemies, Tifa led the new charge. Kasumi and Ayane attacked from both sides, but Tifa's skill showed as she kicked them both several times, knocking Ayane away, although Kasumi kept her ground and charged a Sky Torn Blast. Seeing it, Tifa used her Materia and cast a strong Fire spell. The two attacks completely canceled out, and then the three-on-three teams squared off for the next round.

"Here we go!" Hitomi called out, and she charged first, meeting with Tifa in a brutal fist fight. Exchanging blow after blow, both pulled a fist back and smashed each other back with equal force.

Immediately after, the remaining four combatants began their fights, with Yuna against Kasumi and Rikku against Ayane. Yuna moved, and Rikku used Copycat to synchronize with her as they attacked their respective opponents, quickly knocking them back. But just as they did, Hitomi got back in the game and dropkicked Yuna, sending her to the ground hard.

Rikku shouted at the martial artist and attempted to deliver a high kick to her as well.

But Hitomi grabbed Rikku's ankle and punted the thief into the air just as Tifa ran up behind her. She ducked the monk's incoming spin-kick and jumped off a small tower as Tifa cast Blizarra at the ground, sending a rush of ice toward her.

The martial artist then sprung at Tifa over the ice, but the monk struck first and grabbed her leg, swinging her through the ice and throwing her to the side at the approaching Ayane. But Kasumi was left and slashed Tifa's center.

Yuna quickly stepped in and defended her friend, shooting at Kasumi, and keeping her busy in the second it took Tifa to get back to her feet and kick her away.

Rikku back-flipped between them as she was pursued by Ayane. While Hitomi once more engaged with Tifa, Yuna made a strong double shot at Ayane as Rikku placed her knives on her feet and tried to strike her as well. But Ayane blocked all their attacks with her speed and struck Rikku away while Tifa threw Hitomi to the ground behind her. Ayane turned and swung her double-sided spear at Yuna, but she rolled under it and knocked Kasumi down just as she got back up and jumped off a tower wall onto the ninja's back, shooting Ayane's leg to knock her off balance.

With a quick kick to the chin, Yuna grabbed Ayane's arm and climbed onto her, smashing her foot down to send the kunoichi to the ground while standing on her back and shooting back Kasumi again as the ninja got back to her feet.

Being pushed back by Hitomi, Tifa clicked her tongue and back-flipped to dodge, but while in the air, Hitomi delivered a strong kick, throwing her back as Yuna stepped off Ayane to help, but was quickly blown away by Hitomi as well.

Ayane quickly got back to her feet in a second and jumped over her ally to kick Tifa as she approached again. But Rikku then ran up to Hitomi and kicked her in the face multiple times. "Take THAT!" She gloated and flipped over Ayane's following swing of her tokkosho, only to be caught by the next one and stagger.

But then Tifa grabbed the kunoichi from behind and brought her in front of the bridge connecting to the temple ruins behind them. With a series of powerful kicks, Tifa finished with a somersault to throw Ayane into the air as high as she could. "Rikku, Yuna!" She called to her allies. "Sky high!"

Getting the message, Yuna rolled in behind Hitomi as the martial artist struck Rikku away from her and flipped onto her back, jumped while she was off balance, and pounded her off her feet, lastly rolling underneath her to shot her into the air along with Ayane while at the same time having dodged another of Kasumi's Sky Torn Blasts.

"On you six, Yunie." Rikku called as Kasumi approached Yuna from the side with her blade, but Rikku balanced herself on her Yuna's shoulders and spun herself around, kicking Kasumi relentlessly before finally sending her into the air as well.

"Alright, get ready!" Tifa said, running behind her teammates to be in a line with Rikku in front.

Readying special attacks, Rikku and Yuna gave the signal. "Got it." Rikku said.

"Ready." Yuna followed, and finally, Tifa readied a high level Slowga spell that spread through the area and made everything and everyone - including Yuna and Rikku - down to be several times slower than Tifa.

Using Rikku as a jumping post, Tifa launched herself into the air at the enemies that were nearing the ground in slow motion. She delivered strong attacks to each as she jumped off Ayane, Hitomi, and Kasumi in order to knock them down to the perfect position for Rikku and Yuna's incoming attacks. Landing on the bridge and with a flick of the wrist, Tifa cut off the use of the Slowga spell, returning everyone around her into real time. "Now!" She called to her friends and jumped out of range.

Without hesitation, Rikku lurched forward and smacked Ayane with her knives, consequently throwing her back into both her comrades, and as they all collapsed on the center of the bridge, Yuna leapt high up in the air above her opponents.

At a full level Trigger Happy, Yuna span herself in a circle and shot many curving bullets at the three just as they began getting back to their feet, which was far too late. All three took the full force of the bullet storm and Yuna landed next to Rikku and Tifa, spinning her pistols in her hands, pleased with the success of their combo.

Staggering back to their feet, Ayane glared at their opponents with glowing eyes and growled in anger, "Why that bit-" She began to curse, but was cut off when Kasumi grabbed her shoulder to keep her from charging off in a blind rage. Kasumi gave Ayane a silent nod to calm her down and tell her what to do. "Alright then." Ayane said, turning away from the other and positioning herself on Hitomi arm, who threw her with full strength up onto the very top of the temple ruins.

Putting her tokkosho away, Ayane stood tall and made a number of hand signs, and then stood still to gather the necessary ninpo energy. "Keep 'em busy." She called down to Kasumi and Hitomi.

Realizing what she was about to attempt. Yuna, Rikku, and Tifa immediately took action and Tifa threw Rikku up toward Ayane the same way Hitomi had thrown her while Yuna fired her guns at the kunoichi, only for the ninja to teleport her and Hitomi in the way, Kasumi deflecting Yuna's bullets while the martial artist beat Rikku out of the air. Hitomi then ran up to meet them, but when she tried to strike Tifa, she and Yuna ignored her completely to focus only on stopping Ayane.

Avoiding the volley of Kasumi's Torn Sky Blasts, Tifa dropped-kicked at her, but the ninja teleported away to avoid it.

"Go, go!" Tifa rushed Yuna, using the spare moment to throw the gunner up the tower at Ayane.

Kasumi then reappeared behind the monk and grabbed her head, kicked the back of her knee, and flipped over her while still holding her hair before propelling her down the bridge with a point blank Torn Sky Blast.

Tifa rolled back to her feet, but at that point Hitomi was right in front of her, blocking her path. As the two hand-to-hand experts engaged, Rikku ran past to follow Yuna up the tower as the gunner attempted to jump up the length of the tower while all but ignoring Kasumi's continuous spray of ninpo attacks.

The moment she was close enough to make the shot, Yuna took a knee and pointed her pistols at Ayane, but was cut off when Kasumi appeared over her again and kicked her off the tower completely.

But then Rikku closed the distance and attacked the ninja to strike her down. But just when Rikku got a chance to shove the ninja away, Kasumi instantly teleported over and over from different angles, striking Rikku repeatedly without giving her any chance to recover. Finally, she teleported onto the temple and blasted Rikku away with a Torn Sky Blast.

But having evidentially gotten past Hitomi, Tifa suddenly rushed past Kasumi and put all her strength into her fist as she leapt at Ayane to stop her technique before it could happen. But Kasumi thought fast and took one for the team by teleporting in the way of the monk's fist and nearly bit her tongue as it fist crashed into her and began pushing her back at Ayane.

But just centimeters from doing so, Kasumi teleported both her and Tifa back down to the bridge where Hitomi, Rikku, and Yuna were, saving Ayane completely.

Now too late to stop it, Yuna, Rikku, and Tifa watched as Ayane finished collecting the energy needed for her technique. Held her hand to the sky, and then stabbed her hand down on the top of the temple ruins she stood on. "Eat this!" She yelled, and then the built up energy of the Art of the Raging Mountain God surged through the temple in a shockwave.

As the energy rippled through the whole of the temple, one explosion after another brought the whole thing crashing down over the others. But while Kasumi teleported Hitomi and herself out of harm's way, Yuna and her friends needed a way out before they were caught up in the destruction.

"Oh boy, what do we do?" Rikku wined.

"Run, just run!" Tifa answered, and the three turned back and did so.

However, seeing the only thing before them, Rikku wined again. "But there's a cliff."

"Then JUMP!" Tifa responded strongly, and just before the explosions reached the team of three, they dropped down off of high-risen temple, falling down its side.

As they fell, Rikku brought up yet another problem. "Okay, so wha'do we do now?" She asked.

To this, Yuna thought for a moment and answered as she turned her back toward the wall beside them. "We improvise." She said, and then brought her feet to the wall, skidding down along it, and the others quickly followed her example.

The three of them faced upward and Kasumi, Ayane, and Hitomi appeared over the edge as well, and seeing what they were doing, Ayane clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Still raring to go, huh?" She commented, at which both her teammates also gave annoyed scowls.

As they approached their targets from above, Kasumi, Ayane, and Hitomi followed their example and began skidding down along the side of the tall structure. Getting even closer, all six fighters prepared themselves for yet another round of combat.

As everyone prepared their weapons, Yuna made the first move and fired on Ayane. After deflecting the bullets with a spin, Ayane threw her tokkosho down at Yuna, but Rikku got in the way and knocked it back. Then the thief stabbed her knives into the wall to slow her down and get up close to the enemy. As she did, Ayane pushed down, recovered her tokkosho, and dropped towards Tifa.

When the monk tried to kick her, Ayane met her foot with her own, and pushed back before striking her with her tokkosho. After that, Hitomi ran down at Tifa and threw a barrage of punches at her, and though she defended with her arms, Hitomi managed to land one hard hit on her face and toss her further down.

Pushing back off the wall, Yuna aimed her guns at her enemies from a distance and fired off blasting rounds, but none landed a clean hit. Right after, Tifa charged a Thundara spell and Ayane reacted in kind with her Torn Sky Blast, and the two attacks canceled out in the middle.

Suddenly though, Kasumi, Ayane, and Hitomi jumped and twirled as if to avoid something when no other attack had been launched. Confused, Yuna, Rikku, and Tifa looked below them to suddenly find that they were fast approaching pillars and chains protruding from the side of the tower wall, and reflexively sprung into motion.

Moving desperately to avoid crashing into any of the obstacles, all six combatants had to focus on not hitting the battlefield instead of attacking one another. But that ended soon enough once their footing was regained and Kasumi teleported out in front of Tifa. And as if guessing she would show up there, Tifa kicked the ninja before she had time to attack and punched her away from the wall where Rikku then jumped off her to push her back to Tifa again like a game of catch. The monk then grabbed Kasumi's head and dragged her down across the wall, holding the ninja in position to ram through a number of pillars and then into a whole floor they were about to crash into.

This action busted the floor into several pieces that began to fall alongside the fighters, which Tifa and Hitomi found fit to land on and square off against each other on a make-shift freefalling ring.

Hitomi threw her leg at Tifa from the side, but the monk ducked and countered before flipping over the martial artist and grabbing her by the waist. Tifa then pulled Hitomi off her feet and bent backwards, slamming her opponent half way through the stone slab they fought on.

The monk then grabbed onto the end of the slab and sent it spinning as she floated above it to ready a powerful spell. "Try this on for size," She said, and Hitomi gritted her teeth when she saw the monk cast a Firaga spell, sending a huge burst of flames at her and breaking up the slab she was half way through into even smaller chunks.

But Tifa didn't stop there and called upon the use of another, even more powerful spell. "Ultima!" She called and a black space surrounded Hitomi and the flaming chunks of stone around her, closing in from all sides and crushing her under pressure.  
Hitomi let out a pained scream from within the spell as the Ultima exploded, hammering Hitomi downward past where Yuna was fending off Kasumi. Seeing Hitomi fall, Kasumi struck Yuna away from the wall and teleported above her, where she jumped off the gunner at Tifa, striking her back at to the wall.

landing fine, Tifa called her allies together and the cousins made their way next to her. "Alright, Hastaga!" She called, casting a time spell on the group, and speeding them up several times over. Once cast, the hasted team bolted down at their opponents, who prepared themselves for the speed of their incoming assault.

Rikku took Ayane and ran circles around her to confuse Ayane before striking her from above, followed up by moving so fast it were like she were using Kasumi's teleportation. "S'the matter? Can't keep up?" Rikku taunted the kunoichi before continuing to give a full speed barrage of attacks from all different angles and finally giving her one last good strike downward and laughing victoriously.

Meanwhile Kasumi teleported over and over again to avoid Yuna's speeding bullets. But when she teleported once more, Yuna used the free second to leap away from the wall and turn toward it as Kasumi would reappear, combining the speed from Tifa's Haste with her Trigger Happy to create an almost literal wall of bullets that Kasumi simply couldn't avoid for long, and so fell down after Ayane.

And lastly, Tifa sent kick after kick at high speed for Hitomi, but the martial artist used the subtlest movements to keep up as best she could and defend against them as the Haste began to wear off. But in one last move Tifa kicked Hitomi away and up the wall and then run up above her and charged her most powerful attack, the Final Heaven. With the devastating, explosive punch, Hitomi was sent spiraling down along with her allies.

While falling however, Kasumi, Ayane, and Hitomi noticed someone standing on a huge war hammer stuck into the side of the wall. "Rachel!" Ayane shouted either in surprise or relief for her being there.

"Having some trouble are we?" Rachel asked rhetorically, pulling her war hammer from the side of the wall and charging a special attack while Yuna, Rikku, and Tifa were still above her. "Let's see how they like this!" She said, and threw the war hammer into the wall, sending the whole of the wall above where she struck tumbling down.

With the wall gone, Yuna, Tifa and Rikku jumped away from it so it couldn't crush them. However, with a river of lava where they would fall, it was still not looking good. "Stay close to me." Tifa told her friends, and charged up more spells. "Protectga! Shellga!" She called, and the magical barriers surrounded them as they fell.

They landed on a large rock slab before they hit the river of lava, but Tifa still wasn't able to release her magical defenses until after they landed and the lava that sprayed up from striking it so hard fell. But when she did drop them, she was completely exhausted and fell into Yuna's arms. "Wow; hang in there." Yuna told her.

"We've got company!" Rikku warned her friends and prepared herself as their opponents - who now outnumbered them - teleported and swung in onto the stone slab, attempting to take advantage of their weak member as Rachel charged first.

"Help Tif; I'll hold them off!" Rikku told Yuna, and ran to meet Rachel.

"Rikku!" Yuna called after her, but turned her attention of Tifa, and pulled out a potion and ether from her stock.

As they neared one another, Rachel swung her war hammer as Rikku's legs, but Rikku flipped over it and slid to trip up Ayane who came after her. But then the hunter smashed her war hammer into the stone slab, causing it to break and send both her and Ayane into the air over her.

Rachel then swung her war hammer up at Rikku, but the thief caught onto the weapon with her own and used it to swing her legs at the still falling Ayane and knock her toward the edge of the slab and around to plant her feet against Rachel's chest, pushing back off of her. The hunter barely flinched, and Hitomi came in from behind to kick Rikku back toward Yuna and Tifa.

Being knocked into Yuna by Hitomi's kick, the gunner dropped the potion and ether meant for Tifa. Before she could even try to recover them, Rachel swung her war hammer at her. She dodged and started shooting, but missed as Rachel hit Tifa hard with her weapon.

Yuna fired more rounds and then ran and tackled Rachel down before she could attack Rikku who was still getting back to her feet. Putting her guns away, Yuna reached down and grabbed the potion and ether she'd dropped, while at the same time defending against Hitomi who tried to stop her.

Yuna smashed Hitomi into the ground and pumped herself up, but was then attacked by Ayane, and the healing items left her grasp. But to immediately recover them, Rikku jumped in, catching the potion, kicking off Ayane, and grabbing the ether.

Rachel jumped in next and crashed Rikku down hard. When Rikku slammed into the stone slab on the lava river, the potion and ether flew through the air over Yuna and Hitomi, but were miraculously caught by their intended recipient: Tifa.

Hitomi struck Yuna back and took a swing at the monk to keep her from using them, but the monk in black spun herself with all the energy she had left over the martial artist and dodged Kasumi following sword swings, even using one to uncap the ether in her hand before kicking the ninja away. Tifa then turned back to Hitomi, blocked a kicked, and smashed the potion bottle cap against her, breaking it open as well.

She tried to get a sip in, but Ayane came in to stop her. somehow managing to completely fend her off, Tifa rolled over her back, kicked her away, and brought the potion back toward her lips. Rachel came next and took a swing, but Tifa ducked The and flipped over the following attack, but when the third swing came Tifa took it on boldly, and somehow stayed on her feet while bringing both the potion and ether over her mouth. Ignoring the pain while stumbling, Tifa poured both healing drinks into her mouth, the two drinks combining to create a green elixir.

"Stop her!" Rachel growled at the others, and all four of them charged at Tifa.

But they were just a second too slow. Kasumi jumped at Tifa, but having literally just finished the potion and ether, the monk ducked under it with swift fluid motion, completely revitalized. "Ah! That's good stuff!" Tifa called as she displayed her restoration by smashing the empty bottles over Hitomi head and shoving her away, ducking under Ayane's tokkosho and delivering a few thunder-packed punches to her, tripping up the martial artist again as she attempted to strike her from behind to send her tumbling into Ayane, and finally dropkicking the kunoichi and striking her backwards.

She took a quick hit from Rachel, but kept going strong as she slide before Kasumi, grabbing the ninja's arm and sweeping her legs out from under her. The monk rolled to narrowly avoid the hunter's next attack and flipped up while grabbing Kasumi's hair and using her as a leverage point to spin her around while shooting a Fire spell at Rachel, who she backed up as the monk kicked Kasumi away. She avoided another attack from Rachel, but was finally caught through a combined assault by Ayane and Hitomi, kicking her off the stone slab entirely.

But Tifa used a quick protect spell and called out to Yuna for help. And while on her hands and knees, Yuna pulled one of her guns up and pointed it at Tifa, and Fired a single round. The bullet pushed Tifa back to a rock wall and the monk began running along it at top speed until she gathered enough momentum to be able to run across the lava itself back to the stone slab, where she lifted up her flaming shoes and slammed them into Rachel, kicking her off her feet.

At that time, Rikku helped Yuna to her feet, but the two of them turned in the direction to take in that they were about to head over a lava-style waterfall.

"Oh boy!" Rikku said as Yuna rolled further down the slab and the thief attempted to switch out her Dressphere

However, before she could do so, Hitomi was suddenly knocked into her from behind, throwing her off. Before anyone could try anything else, the stone slab they were fighting on crashed into a piece of rock jutting out of the lava river and it shattered to pieces, sending all 7 combatants plummeting towards a lake of lava.

But just then, a figure in blue with white wings saw what was happening from a cliff, and more quickly then she could speak, cast a Blizzaga spell at the lava. In mere seconds, the lake froze completely over, becoming a plain of ice underneath the fighters, allowing them all to avoid melting to death. But of course, they all knew that no ordinary Blizzaga spell would ever have been able to create an effect that grand, and Yuna looked around for whomever had pulled it off.

The blue garbed angel descended slowly to them, and she, Rikku, and Tifa all immediately recognized who she was.

"Rinoa," The three whispered at almost the same time.

The winged girl landed softly onto the ice rink she had created with her sorceress level magic and spread her wings out, facing the ones whom had threatened her friends. "Hey there Rin!" Rikku called out cheerfully.

"Thanks for the save." Yuna added with relief, and Tifa just settled with a wave.

Turning to her friends, Rinoa held up a finger and winked. "Don't mention it." She told them, and turned back to the enemy.

Rinoa prepared the gunblade on her right hip and the pinwheel on her left arm as she walked slowly forward. She pulled the gunblade off her belt and pointed forward, the blade gleaming in the moonlight. And a second later, a shooting star suddenly trailed through the night sky above Rinoa, and that light then fell straight down beside her to deposit a young girl in pink, holding a floral blade in her hand.

"Are you prepared, Kairi?" Rinoa asked the girl.

"Yes," The Keyblade wielder answered, turning her head up to look at the foes before her as Yuna, Rikku, and Tifa then walked up to stand at their sides.

"Alright then," Rinoa said, her voice full of determination and strength. "Go!" She called, soaring into the air as the other four charged with renewed confidence now that they outnumbered their opponents.

Preparing for the assault, Kasumi, Ayane, Hitomi, and Rachel readied their weapons and waited, and as they closed in, Kairi jumped into the air above the enemy. Spinning rapidly, her pink and white clothing was changed into the deep red of the Valor form, and her floral Keyblade Destiny's Embrace was replaced with Oathkeeper and Oblivion.

falling fast toward the enemy with those weapons, Kairi crashed into the ice as Kasumi and Rachel got out of her way. In an instant, yet another round of combat began.

Kairi charged Kasumi, swinging both her Keyblades one after another to keep her on defense, Rikku took on Ayane and pushed her back quickly, and Rinoa came to the ground to attack Rachel with her gunblade as Tifa engaged Hitomi with Yuna waiting for a shot to take.

Rinoa struck Rachel back and then threw her Pinwheel at Ayane, and after Rikku ran back, she activated the Aero spell to envelope the kunoichi in a mini-tornado.

Rinoa then turned back to Rachel as she came back for her. The sorceress blocked the hunter's war hammer with her gunblade, caught her Pinwheel as it came back to her, and swung the gunblade down, but was deflected. Then Yuna ran in from behind, bounding over Rachel when she noticed her and shot at her. The hunter tried to counter but Rikku kicked her in the back to knock her off balance and was followed up by an immediate attack from Kairi, a small shock wave rippling under Rachel to send her into the air.

Kairi then used Strike Raid and threw both her Keyblades at Rachel while she was in mid-air. Yuna began firing on the hunter, but just then Ayane came in between her and Kairi.

The kunoichi kicked Yuna in the back before going for the momentarily unarmed Keyblade wielder, but Kairi flipped back to avoid the attack and re-summoned her Keyblades to counter as Rikku ran in from the side to help. "Kairi, double team this punk!" Rikku called out to her ally and began a combined attack.

The two duel-wielding fighters span around, creating a truly relentless string of attacks Ayane could barely hold off for even a second. Once their attacks got through, Rikku tossed Ayane into the air, and then she and Kairi got on either side of where she would fall. At just the right moment, Kairi gave a signal and both she and Rikku cut past one another, slashing their blades across Ayane and sending her spinning out of control just above the ground before twisting and pushing back to do the same thing a second time.

Ayane fell dizzy to the icy floor, but Rachel then approached Rikku and attacked her. Throwing her war hammer down, she caught the thief's head on the inside of the blade and then threw her into Kairi, which knocked them both backwards onto the ice as she began to charge and shot off the Blades of Ouroboros at them, the ninpo energy blazing down on her targets.

Coming up behind her comrades, Rinoa covered Rikku and Kairi with her wings and protected them from the attack.

The thief and Keyblade wielder ran forward again while Rinoa raised her arms and prepared another spell. Throwing her pinwheel into the sky, she called out the Tornado spell, and a huge twister formed behind the enemy in an instant.

With all four enemies in front of her, Kairi took her Oblivion Keyblade and threw it at the ground in front of them, using the Gravity spell to force Kasumi, Ayane, Hitomi, and Rachel backwards into the tornado.

Immediately, Yuna open fired into the tornado and Tifa cast consecutive fire spells, but their opponents inside still managed to defend against them. Because of that, Rinoa used Float magic to lift up fallen pillars from the temple and throw them into the tornado as well. The pillars knocked those inside around a little bit, but Rachel got herself to balance on one and struck the rubble back out of the tornado at their targets.

Once more, Rinoa stopped two pillars in front of her with float. "Everyone, get on." She told the others, who did as instructed and stood atop the pillars, and pushed them all into the tornado after their opponents on them..

Once inside, everyone began running and jumping around the pillars swirling around within the tornado, attempting to get at their enemies, but the one who landed the first strike was Hitomi, kicking Tifa into the wind. And then below the pillar Rikku and Kairi stood on, Rachel took a swing and broke it apart, doing the same to them.

Seeing they were having trouble, Rinoa stretched her wings and flew in after them as well. She attacked Rachel first, who defended from where she was standing on a pillar and pushed her back, but the sorceress caught herself and flew by again, striking the hunter with her gunblade. "Everyone, get them together." She called to her friends.

Kairi chased after Ayane while Tifa pursued Hitomi and Yuna fought off Kasumi. Hitomi landed on a pillar and turned around expecting to be met with Tifa, but suddenly found Kairi delivering a shockwave that burned across the base of the pillar they stood on and threw her up to where Tifa actually was, who then kicked her to the side. Rikku got a hold of Ayane and threw her toward the center of the tornado after the martial artist, and Yuna displayed great foresight by shooting at Kasumi and predicting that she would teleport right above her, shooting there once she had, and sending her up to join her team, and finally Kairi struck Rachel down through a pillar at the other three.

The four collided with one another in the eye of the tornado and Rinoa soared at high speed past them over and over from various angles, striking them with the gunblade each time she did until she came to a stop above them, and with her Sorceress powers, charged a powered up version of the already powerful Flare spell, firing a huge beam of burning light down at all four.

The power of the spell caused the tornado around it to fall apart, and the pillar pieces, along with Rinoa and her friends, fell down to the frozen lake, but their opponents still showed no signs of backing down. They all realized that this was dragging on too long. They couldn't keep going like they were, and so Rinoa raised her arms to the sky and made a silent prayer, as she arched her head back, held her arms to her sides, and spread her wings wide.

At that moment, four beams of light shot down from the sky and took up spots around the fighters. Understanding what they needed to do, Yuna, Rikku, Tifa, and Kairi turned their heads and gave Rinoa and each other a nod of agreement before rushing toward a different pillar of light.

Grabbing Hitomi's leg, Tifa flipped the two of them into one of the light pillars, both becoming completely still inside. Yuna shot Kasumi backward into the second light pillar and entered herself. Rikku threw several feints before finally kicking Ayane back into the third light pillar and charging in herself while Kairi attacked Rachel, but the hunter ducked under her strike at the last second, and the Keyblade wielder fell into the pillar of light by herself, freezing in place.

The left over hunter then took for the person casting the spell and attacked Rinoa in the hopes of stopping her before she finished what she was doing. Throwing down her war hammer at the sorceress's head, a fifth pillar of light came down and enveloped them both just before the attack could land, freezing them in place as well.

After a moment, the five pillars of light climbed into the sky and shot off in all different directions. They were splitting up to divide and conquer, taking each one on by themselves.

* * *

 **Author's Note: I am still looking for a partner to continue this series with. If you are interested, please send me a PM.**


	3. Dead Fantasy III

Dead Fantasy Novella III

The snow fell lightly in the night and covered the floor of a cathedral. Waking up in the cold, Hitomi pushed herself to her feet and gasped. "What- where am I? Where's..."

Remembering what had happened and being unsure where she was, Hitomi looked around swiftly to try and find Tifa, who should have come here with her.

She found the monk to her right, just as she too got to her feet. "Alright..." Tifa said, looking at Hitomi with determination and tightening her gloves. "Just you and me now, let's get this show on the road." She spoke as she approached.

Hitomi groaned. "Must you complicate everything? Fine then..."

"Let's go!" Both Tifa and Hitomi shouted at each other and charged forward.

The two hand-to-hand experts met and quickly began exchanging blows, blocking where they could. The first to land a solid hit was Hitomi, striking with her elbow before kicking Tifa to the ground. But the monk didn't stay down for even a second and bounced straight back up, returning the favor and shoot her foot up at the martial artist, throwing her back.

Hitomi flipped back to her feet at the fighters charged once more, meeting in the middle and smashing their feet down hard enough to break the flooring beneath them. Time almost seemed to slow down as both fighters threw strong right punches for each others jaw. Both connected at the same time, but Tifa charged one of her Materia to deliver a powerful spell from point blank. The Firaga blast exploded with tremendous force and blew them both backwards, setting the cathedral around them on fire.

Tifa landed on her feet while Hitomi crashed into a support pillar and hit the ground, hurrying back up. Slowly walking toward Hitomi again, Tifa chided her, "Had enough?"

Hitomi growled and put herself in fighting stance as a response, and Tifa made all the Materia in her limbs light up before charging for the martial artist. Flipping through the air, Tifa added fire magic to her attack and kicked, burning Hitomi's arm a bit.

Tifa uppercut, Hitomi defended with one arm and jabbed with the other. The monk struck her with an elbow jab and the pair continued to exchange blow after blow. Hitomi kicked Tifa's leg from under her, but the monk balanced herself with one hand and swept the martial artist off her own feet. Hitomi rolled as Tifa bounded high and dropped back down at her, getting to her feet and kicked twice, once to the monk's center and the next at her head.

Then Hitomi got in close and began a dangerously close-quarters brawl, that resulted in Tifa grabbing and throwing her into a support pillar behind them. But the martial artist braced her feet against it and pushed off, swinging her legs around Tifa neck and twisting herself in a back flip from that position to throw the monk crashing through another support.

The column collapsed and Hitomi jumped high to clear the distance to her opponent. But Tifa took advantage of her being in the air and charged another fire spell, sending a swirl of the flames up at the martial artist, who then flipped in mid-air to narrowly avoid them as she crashed down at Tifa.

The monk moved back and Hitomi charged yet again as Tifa hit her feet and the two exchanged another flurry of attacks that barely hit the opposing fighter. After a moment of the stalemate, Tifa finally landed a couple of kicks, but Hitomi took them strong and remained on her feet as the monk began charging another Firaga spell.

Hitomi stabbed her hands into the ground at her feet and yanked a piece of the cathedral floor up as Tifa's Firaga blast burned forward. The flooring fell towards her, and the monk flipped over the burning slab to kick at Hitomi. Once again, the brawlers relentlessly threw blow after blow at one another, each scoring the occasional hit.

A punch, a kick, a jab, a counter, but neither gave an inch until finally the cycle was broken as Tifa gave some distance and charged a new Materia. With a few strong blows to Hitomi, Tifa cast the spell blind and jabbed her fists into the martial artist, striking her onto her back.

Hitomi tried to get back to her feet as always, but she stumbled back down her knees coughed up blood from the devastating blows. But unwilling to yield, she Stumbled back to her feet - more slowly now - tried to look forward, only to prove that her sight was failing her before closing them instead. She took a calming breathe a listened hard to her surroundings. "Give up yet?" Tifa asked her.

Defiantly, Hitomi put up her fists once more and motioned for Tifa to come at her. "No way." She muttered at Tifa, adding even more softly, "I can't afford to lose here."

"Fine then, have it your way!" Tifa yelled and rushed forward once more, sure she'd have the upper hand with Hitomi robbed of her sight.

But Hitomi quickly showed her that she was wrong. Relying on nothing but her sense of hearing, Hitomi deflected Tifa's punches, pushed her back, and defended against the monk as she raised her leg for a back-kick. The martial artist threw her kick at where Tifa's head would be, but the monk ducked and tried to strike again. And yet still Hitomi blocked and deflected each strike with astounding precision, and finally, as she grabbed onto Tifa's wrist and pushed up against the forearm, she caused one of the monk's Materia to shot out painfully, making her clench her teeth and muscles.

Hitomi kicked Tifa away and then held her hand out to catch the Materia as it fell. "How about a taste of your own medicine?" Hitomi asked and stuck the Materia in her own arm, and used it by punching the ground. "Quake!" She roared, sending a tremor through the ground in all directions.

Tifa jumped over the rocky wave and ran at Hitomi again, now in fury at having her Materia stolen. "Give that back!" She ordered.

Tifa attacked both she and Hitomi utilized her Materia to cast spell after spell from close range, but each time their hands were deflected and the magic sent in a different direction. Hitomi pushed Tifa to the ground and twisted her arm, pulling out one of her independent Materia. As the monk rolled away, the Materia bounced off a pillar and Hitomi caught it, equipping the Speed Plus Materia as well.

Becoming even more furious, Tifa continued to assault Hitomi, but the martial artist blocked every single strike with ease before making a string of fast jabs on her, pushing her back to a pillar and knocking out yet another Materia. Tifa cast a Fire spell, but Hitomi deflected her aim and knocked the Materia out. Next came Thunder, the spell missed again, and another Materia was lost.

One after another, Tifa's Materia fell to the floor until she managed to roll past Hitomi and get away. Her arms were bleeding now from the forceful removal of her Materia, and the monk looked around in a panic as so many of them lay scattered across the cathedral ground. "No, no, no..." Tifa looked around desperately as if trying to find a specific Materia among the many, and while she was distracted, Hitomi ran up from behind her - her sight recovered from the Blind spell - and smashed an elbow into Tifa's back, knocking out all of her remaining Materia with a single blow as well as hurling the monk all the way out of the cathedral severely wounded.

As Tifa stumbled to her feet, figures moved around in the background. Tifa held a hand to her head as blood continued to run down her body, unable to tell what would happen next...

Elsewhere, a blonde woman named Helena Douglas entered into a lab filled with a number of large tubs filled with a green fluid and some physical form. Walking into the metal area and toward the control panel in the center of the room, her footsteps resounded loudly off the walls as infrared scanner shined over her body to confirm her identity.

Reaching the control panel, holographic screens appeared before her and she worked through the programs. She sighed as she did so. "I can't believe I'm about to do this..." She spoke softly to herself, but cut off when a warning screen was displayed before her.

 **WARNING: Replicant estimated maximum lifespan without mechanical support: 14 Hrs**

While looking at that display, Helena looked troubled and worried. However, she knew what had to be done. "Forgive me..." She whispered, and filled with regret, Helena released the figures in the tubs, all of which held the exact appearance of a certain blue-garbed ninja: Kasumi.


	4. Dead Fantasy IV

Dead Fantasy Novella IV

Somewhere far away from her friends on an empty beach, Kairi awoke and rose to her feet. Rinoa had spread them out to fight off their attackers one-on-one, and Kairi had been meant to be sent here with Rachel, but missed and ended up here alone while Rinoa now had to deal with the hunter in her place. Sullen, the Keyblade wielder walked toward the water's edge and noticed a white feather sticking up from the sand: Rinoa's feather.

Standing up and looking out across the ocean before her, Kairi spoke out loud. "Don't worry everyone, I'll figure this out. Please, just make it back safely."

And with that, Kairi turned away and walked away from the ocean.

But elsewhere, in an open grassy plain, Yuna now faced off against Kasumi. For a while, the gunner and ninja just stood there, with flower petals drifting around Kasumi, and pyreflies around Yuna, as if giving her power. Finally, without even exchanging a word, Yuna ran forward, and Kasumi returned in kind.

Yuna fired her guns, and Kasumi dodged and deflected them with her blade, swinging at Yuna when she got the chance. The gunner blocked and Kasumi flipped and Yuna tried to kick her and clashed their weapons against one another even more.

Suddenly, Yuna heard something behind her as Kasumi put distance between them. Reacting to what she heard, Yuna turned and blocked a sudden incoming attack, only to find herself suddenly confronting... Kasumi, only dressed in pink instead of blue. "What...?" Yuna questioned.

Also looking surprised, Kasumi lowered her arms and stared at the Alpha clone. (What the hell...) She thought to herself, and then several more clones of her teleported in around her and Yuna.

Yuna wasn't sure what was going on, but she knew if she were going to fight off this many opponents, she would need more than her guns. She pushed the Kasumi Alpha clone before her away and then was enveloped in a beam of light that began to expand outward and turn the landscape grey as she changed her dressphere. Unsure what was happening, Kasumi and her clones teleported out of the way, reappearing after it past in a line before Yuna, who was now dressed in her old summoner's garb, wielding her old staff, and slowly walking forward.

After taking a few steps, Yuna made a few dance-like motions and gathered the surrounding energy as she spoke. "Spirits of the Fayth, hear my call. Grant me your power and come forth...

"I call upon the Aeons... Ixion! Shiva!" Yuna shouted to the sky, and behind her, a skeletal horse and a half-naked blue woman appeared out of thin air and charged forward.

"Aeons!?" Kasumi said in surprise as Ixion charged forward with Shiva on his back.

The Aeons used their magic and attacked Kasumi and her clones, freezing and/or shocking them into defeat, and causing the others to scatter.

Then, combining their greatest attacks, Diamond Dust and Thor's Hammer, the Aeon's struck together and sent a line of electrified ice through the crowd of enemies. Knowing their strength and that of the Aeons, the Kasumi Alpha clones attempted to get to Yuna, who was calling them forth.

"Now, Valefor!" Yuna called in another Aeon, and the large bird appeared in the sky and came close to the ground, using her Sonic Wings attack to knock the clones to the ground before they could reach her summoner.

When the Kasumi Alpha clones used the Sky Torn Blast to try and shoot Valefor down, the Aeon retaliated with her special attack, Energy Ray, shooting a beam across the ground that caused an explosion among them, knocking many down for the count.

"Ifrit!" Yuna called upon yet another Aeon, the beast of fire charging in and striking the clones aside with his claws, followed with his own special attack: Hellfire.

The Hellfire blast cut a long line down the field, striking many Kasumi clones and just nearly missing the real Kasumi, who was also fighting her clones, evidentially unhappy with their presence and quite possibly their existence.

A Kasumi Alpha teleported onto Ifrit's back, stabbing him as another struck him point blank with the Sky Torn Blast and bringing him down. "Bahamut!" Yuna called out once more, and the dragon Aeon appeared in the sky, using his Impulse attack to strike down more of the Kasumi Alpha clones as they attempted to approach Yuna.

He then reached higher into the sky and charged his ultimate attack: the Megaflare. The Kasumi clones did not speak, but they immediately acted to prevent that devastating attack. a number of the clones teleported onto Bahamut and blasted it with several Sky Torn Blasts at once, inflicting great damage to the powerful Aeon before teleporting away and sending his Megaflare off course, almost striking Ixion and Shiva as they continued to fight the other clones.

Bahamut crashed down near Yuna and she cried for her friend. "Bahamut!" She said, but kept her focus on the battle as Valefor flew close to her. But before Yuna could usher her forward again, Valefor was struck down by a more Sky Torn Blasts. "No!" Yuna cried out.

As a Kasumi Alpha came too close, Shiva ran in from behind Yuna and kicked the clone back, then cast Blizarra at the feet of another as Ixion struck another back with his horn. But then the Kasumi Alpha clones grabbed onto Ixion and stabbed into him. Shiva used Blizzaga on more clones, but the ones she missed caught her and stabbed her a few times, ending her as well as the rest of the Aeons. "Shiva! Ixion, no!" Yuna couldn't believe the Aeons had all been defeated so fast, and with all her magic severely depleted, Yuna reverted to her Gunner Dressphere, falling to her hands and knees.

The Kasumi Alpha clones ran and jumped at Yuna while she was down, intent on finishing the battle. But just before they reached her, someone suddenly raced in on a motorcycle from behind Yuna, and stopped suddenly to jump over her and strike the ground with his huge sword, sending an energy blast at the approaching clones.

When the explosion past, Yuna saw the man that saved her and found it was someone she knew. "Cloud?" She called his name.

Looking out at the large number of enemies, Cloud turned his head slightly to look back at Yuna. "You okay?" He asked her. "Can you still fight?"

"Y-yeah." Yuna nodded, and then walked up next to Cloud, pulling out her guns as he readied his buster blade.

But just then, the real Kasumi teleported down in front of them. "Wait!" She told them, and they lowered their weapons wondering what she wanted. Kasumi took a few steps back toward her clones and looked around at them, then sighed.

She suddenly used a great amount of ninpo energy to cover a wide area and mass-teleported herself and all the clones away from the battlefield. "She ran off?" Cloud wondered. "Why?"

Yuna shrugged in response, but holstered her pistols since they were no longer needed.

Cloud walked back to his motorbike and put his sword in the side compartment. "So..." Yuna began, about to ask if Cloud was leaving.

"You coming?" Cloud asked her before she finished her thought.

"Um, well..." She stuttered, apparently a bit embarrassed. "Alright then." She answered, and walked up to him, getting on the motorbike behind him.

With that, Cloud started up his bike and rode off through the field. "Cloud... why are you here?" Yuna asked, although by now she shouldn't be surprised with people showing up out of seemingly nowhere.

"Why am I here?" Cloud repeated the question, perhaps only now asking himself that question. "Because..." He sighed, then gave a firm response while facing forward. "Because I trust her."

"Her? You mean Tifa?" Yuna confirmed, and Cloud nodded.

But then, after just a second of silence, Cloud added onto his answer without even meaning to. "And because..." He started, and Yuna's attention was brought back to him. "You... remind me of someone that I said goodbye to."

"Goodbye?" Yuna questioned.

Cloud was silent for another second, but then just remarked, "A long time ago." He told her, and then found the road back to the city.

After another minute, Yuna felt like she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore and dropped her head on Cloud's back. "She must be exhausted..." Cloud remarked to himself as Yuna fell to sleep, and then thought back to when he'd last seen Tifa, backing away toward a cliff at Zack's grave.


	5. Dead Fantasy V

Dead Fantasy Novella V

Tifa was badly wounded, standing outside of a burning cathedral after just losing all of her materia to Hitomi. But something moved in the background and she felt more presences gather in the area.

Inside the cathedral, Hitomi suddenly saw a number of ninja standing up high around her, and then a man in white appeared next to her, one she knew quite well. "Ein- Hayate..." Hitomi corrected herself. "What are you-"

"Helena sent me." Hayate answered, as one of his ninja followers jumped down next to him. "Gather the materia, we'll need it later." He told Hitomi, and then walked out of the cathedral after his ninja.

On the outside, the dark clothed ninja began to surround Tifa while Hayate walked directly toward her slowly. "Stop this now, you are no longer in position to fight." Hayate told her as the ninja came around her.

But one look at Tifa's eyes told Hayate she had no intention of giving in. Slowly, she backed herself toward a railing that just led to a long drop. Her blood fell and stained the snow red, and she was struggling to keep her balance, but the determination in her eyes stayed firm all the same as she watched the men around her.

Backed up to the railing, Tifa waited a moment. Hitomi came out of the cathedral as well, Tifa's materia glowing in her limbs. "I'm ready." She told Hayate, though she sounded unsure for some reason.

However, Hayate walked forward and replied. "No, you stay back. We'll handle this now."

Just then, a train whistle was heard from below, and taking it as a cue, Tifa jumped over the railing behind her and fell down onto the train as it passed by below. Already severely injured, Tifa crumpled onto the train from the impact and gritted her teeth while holding her side.

Back up top, Hayate didn't seem at all discouraged and waved an arm, giving his subordinates a simple order. "Go," And with that the many ninja jumped from the ledge as well, and with much skill and speed, hopped off the sides and ledges of nearby buildings as they made their way quickly to where Tifa was.

Seeing them come after her, Tifa turned and ran down the train, but it wasn't long at all before the ninja had gotten right behind her. She stopped and looked back at them, and then forward again only to find Hayate suddenly appear on the train in front of her, and then move up to be on the same car as her. "You don't need to do this!" He called over the roaring winds, although his tone of voice remained calm.

But still refusing to yield to her pursuers, Tifa jumped off the side of the moving train and smashed through a window, landing in a car garage and making a run for it. However, before she got anywhere, one of the ninja came in from the side and struck her down with his sword. As the other ninja dropped into the building as well, the first one stabbed down at her, but she rolled away and under a desk table.

When she got to her feet she kicked it at the ninja, but he easily sliced it in two, and she used that moment to run up to him and punch him in the face, spinning to dodge another ninja's sword and kick him away. A third came down and attacked with metal claws, but she kept her arm at his and made sure they didn't cut her, then elbowed him in the stomach and ran past him.

She somersaulted off another ninja's chest, kicking him in the chin and then slamming her foot back down on the head of the one she just elbowed, following with a series of back flips to avoid a few others' attacks. But soon enough, one of them caught her in the air and struck her down, smashing her into a car jack that came out from beneath the vehicle it was holding up.

The ninja around her got into formation and Hayate appeared on a scaffolding overlooking them. Getting back to her feet, Tifa flipped back and kicked a ninja before he attacked and looked to the carjack beside her. "Okay, time to improvise." She said to herself and then dropkicked the rod of the carjack, smashing the other end into a ninja's chin and then grabbing it to use as a makeshift weapon since she knew it would be harder to fight so many armed ninja with just her hands and feet.

With the car jack in her hands, she spun around and smashed it across a ninja and into the ground. As two more came up behind her, Tifa kicked back one and blocked the other's sword with the carjack pole and kicked him back as well. She then rolled the carjack over into yet another incoming ninja and threw him off balance. Stepping onto the rolling carjack, she kicked the ninja back, jumped off while holding on as another swung his sword, once more kicked an incoming attacker back, and finally smashed the car jack into the one that had swung his sword.

Kicking one last ninja back, she swung the car jack around and its bottom section came off the pole, smashing into the head of another ninja behind the one she just kicked. Now with just the pole, which was actually more balanced and easier to handle without extra weight on one end, Tifa defended against a ninja that attacked with metal claws and smashed him back with it.

Spinning the pole around her body a few times, she smashed it into a couple more ninja as well as blocking any incoming attacks, knocking a few down. As another tried to strike her from behind, she jumped up and out of the way, and then brought the pole down hard, slamming him into the ground. She rolled away as one of the ninja behind her got back to his feet, and then used the pole to strike the sword from his hand into the head of another ninja, blocked several attacks, and pounded the back of the one in front of her before he could get back to his feet.

Striking back two more ninja with the pole, one dropped their sword and Tifa also hit it into the head of a ninja. She smashed the pole straight on into the chest of a ninja with metal claws and turned to block another's sword. However, after the amount of blows the pole had taken up to now, the ninja's sword cut it in two, and then he kicked Tifa back. Another with metals claws dropped down on her and she rolled out of the way, only to get struck in the back by a sword. She smashed both halves of the poled a few times into the clawed ninja and then looked up at Hayate, who had done nothing this whole time but watch as his flunkies ganged up on her.

"Strike her down." Hayate told the ninja to either side of him, who all now held bows.

Locking in arrows, the ninja let loose a storm of arrows at Tifa, who moved back while blocking with the two halves of the pole as bet she could, but wasn't long before she was struck by a great number and her back hit a car and fell to her knees.

Suddenly, Tifa found herself thinking back to when she'd last seen Cloud in front of Zack's grave just before becoming a part of the battle at the temple. At the moment, she was solidifying her resolve to commit to a task before her. That was when Cloud came up behind her. "Tifa!" He called, and she turned to him. "Stop, you don't have to do this." He told her.

But Tifa backed away and shook her head. "You're wrong, I do." She told him, and stopped just at the edge of the cliff. Holding a hand to her chest, she spoke one last thing to Cloud. "Trust me."

But Cloud didn't understand. "No," He said and then ran for Tifa as she let herself fall backwards off the cliff. "Stooooooop!" He yelled after her.

As Cloud ran and Tifa fell, Cloud accidentally knocked down Zack's buster blade that stood in the ground. But when he would have looked over the cliff side, Tifa would have already been gone, as if she vanished into thin air.

The next thing Tifa knew, she was waking up at the base of a ruined temple, the same one she found Yuna and Rikku fighting at.

Suddenly however, giving thought to that event gave Tifa a burst of adrenaline, and she charged to her feet once more, gritting her teeth as she got her second wind. "NO!" She yelled in defiance of Hayate and his ninja subordinates. In a pure outburst of rage and defiance of the inevitable, Tifa used all her strength and smashed half of the car jack pole straight through the skull of one of the ninja. "I will not!..." She began to yell out and ran up to the scaffolding Hayate and a few more ninja were, grabbing one by the waist and throwing him over. "...Lose!" She completed her declaration as she kicked another ninja in the jaw and then sent a straight punch for Hayate.

However, far from being shocked, Hayate stood and Tifa was suddenly struck back by an attack she couldn't even see that threw her back into a metal beam hanging from the ceiling before she fell down to the ground once again. But still Tifa rose instantly to her feet and punched the ninja in front of her and elbowed another behind, knocking both down with the next few strikes. "Get out..." She defended against another ninja and stole his sword as she knocked him down. "...of my..." She growled, using the sword she took to fight another ninja with a sword and cut him down, as well as stab another as she kicked one behind her, then turned to slash him down. "...way!" But in the end, one ninja managed to get in close and stabbed his sword into her arm, though she quickly retaliated by cutting his arm off and into his chest.

Tifa stumbled again but held herself on her feet with the sword in her hand. While breathing heavily, she pulled the sword in her arm out and picked up the other from the ground to charge forward once again. "I..." She shouted as she cleanly cut a ninja in two at the waist. "Will..." She added, cutting into another's elbow and the next three multiple times. "NOT..." She cried as more ninja came down from the scaffolding. One attacked with a sword as he dropped, and Tifa jumped back and then off a metal beam, onto a ninja and cutting into his chest while jumping off him, "Be..." Another shout as she fell from the air, cutting another ninja clean in two, this one from the top down and running up the stair's side rail to Hayate again. "Beaten..." She continued again while slashing at Hayate, who moved at blinding speed away from her. "By YOU!" She completed her statement and swung the swords several times at Hayate, although he easily dodged each one with blinding speed and got behind her.

Tifa then immediately dealt with the ninja now in front of her and cut one's head off and faced Hayate again. But when she swung the sword next, a chain was thrown and wrapped around her wrist, restricting her as another came around her neck and pulled her backwards. She tried to attack the ninja with the chain around her neck, but the one holding her arm was yanked on and pulled her back again. In rage, she used the chain for herself to throw the one holding the chain on her wrist around and into the metal scaffolding.

Tifa swung at the other ninja, but two more with threw chains and restrained her other arm and one of her legs. But now she ignored it all to run forward and pulled the ninja with her in one last desperate attempt to get at Hayate. But somewhere as she ran, he ended up behind her, and though she had no idea when the attack had struck or where it had come from, Tifa lost all feeling in her body and fell to the ground, finally losing consciousness. "No..." She breathed as she did.

Slowly, Hayate went and picked Tifa up, carrying her unconscious, bloody form in his arms. When he carried her outside, Hitomi finally arrived on the scene again. However, when she found Tifa's more than half-dead body in Hayate's arm, she became noticeably frustrated. "What did you... YOU IDIOT!" She screamed at him, slapping him across the face, although he didn't appear to mind and gave no response.

But he then looked up as a helicopter came down in front of them, and opened up for Helena and a number of soldiers with guns to come out and secure the area, as well as one with a stretcher for Tifa.

"Hold on-" Hitomi called and stretched out a hand, but when she did one of the materia in her arm lit up for an unknown reason. "Um... I... I got this." She told Helena when she came to examine it.

With a nod of approval, Helena said, "Good work."

Hayate placed Tifa on the stretcher, which was pushed back into the helicopter after he gave what looked like a silent prayer, and then nodded to his ninja, who jumped and disappeared. While Helena and Hitomi boarded the helicopter and left, Hayate stayed behind and watched it leave, afterward looking down as his hand, which was now stained with Tifa's blood.

And elsewhere, after having fled from Yuna and Cloud, Kasumi battled off her numerous Alpha clones in frustration, although after turning the area around her into a literal river of blood, she was exhausted. While breathing heavily, she looked at the remaining dozen as they circled her. Kasumi truly had no energy left, but when the Alpha clones charged her, a man suddenly dropped down from above with a shout.

Killing off the final clones in seconds, Kasumi shook her head and looked at the man in dark clothing and held out her hand. "Ry...u...? She made out his name, but then all strength left her body and she fell forward - into Ryu's arms - unconscious.

After that, a woman in red also appeared in the river of blood and looked around. "Oh my..." She said in slight disbelief at the scene, but then walked up to Ryu and Kasumi.

"Alright Momiji, take a look." Ryu told her, holding Kasumi close to him.

"Alright then." Momiji replied, and put her hand to Kasumi's head. Suddenly, in a flash, Momiji saw images of all that had happened to Kasumi since she had gone after Yuna, Cloud's appearance sticking out in those memories because it was most recent. Complete with the glance at Kasumi's memories, Momiji nodded to Ryu. "We need to get her to safety."

"Right," Ryu agreed, and with a nod from each of them, they leapt into the air and vanished, leaving the river of blood and the Kasumi Alpha clones behind.

And elsewhere, just outside a bright city, Cloud rode up with Yuna still resting on his back. He stopped for a moment, and then saw a helicopter pass by overhead, also heading for the city.

He had no basis behind it, but Cloud felt a bad premonition as he approached that city. "I've got a bad feeling about this..." He stated to himself, but against that feeling, continued toward the city anyways.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE: Alright, that takes care of 1-5, next up is Ayane vs Rikku. I am still looking for a partner in writing this, if you are interested, please contact me in a PM.**


	6. Dead Fantasy VI

_Dead Fantasy Novella VI_

Ayane snapped awake and quickly scanned the area to figure out where she was. Looking around, she found that she was in some kind of underground cavern with numerous pipes of varying sizes coiling around everywhere. Getting to her feet, she searched the cavern for the girl that would have been somewhere nearby; Rikku.  
"Up here," The thief's voice echoed through the cavern, and Ayane looked up to see Rikku standing up high on one of the larger pipes below the broken in ceiling they must have fallen in from, with her dual knives already in hand for the imminent battle. "You ready for your beat down?" Rikku asked threateningly and leapt from the pipe to be at the same level as Ayane, and took her fighting stance.

In response to this, Ayane gritted her teeth and took out her tokkosho. "If you would just stop running that mouth of yours..." She muttered.

"What's that? Couldn't hear you." Rikku grinned, and then began to approach Ayane, who followed suit as they both pick up speed until they were both in a full run straight at one another.

They closed the gap between them, and then both burst forward at the last second, swinging their weapons at each other, clashing, and sliding off to the other side of each other. Just as quickly, both Rikku and Ayane skid to a stop, turned back around, and did the same thing three more times. And then, the fourth time they turned and burst toward each other, they locked their weapons and pushed against each another, glaring at their opponent.

They pushed away and then began fast-paced, close-quarters combat. Rikku started by trying to kick Ayane's leg out from under her, but she stepped just out of reach while swinging her tokkosho at Rikku. While twisting and spinning around, Rikku expertly used her dual knives to block each swing of Ayane's tokkosho and make counterattacks all within the same combo.

She and Ayane swung and spun their weapons at each other over and over and over again, but both were so fast and skilled that neither could land a direct blow, every attack parried and every counter blocked as the sparks flew in all directions with each strike. But finally, after building up enough speed and momentum, Rikku pushed through.

One of Rikku's knives caught Ayane's arm, and although the opening was small, Rikku took it at full force. She slashed Ayane three more times with her blades and then spun in place to deliver a strong roundhouse kick into Ayane's jaw. Thrown onto her back, Ayane quickly flipped back onto her feet, but only just as Rikku closed in on her again and threw an uppercut at her before she could block to throw her up into the air.

Given the second, Rikku stepped back and crouched down ready to burst forward as she held her knives ready with her arms crossed in front of her. When Ayane dropped low enough, Rikku burst forward and struck Ayane with all her strength one last time and pass by her, coming to a stop for a moment before slowly turning back toward Ayane. "So, give up yet- Wow!" Rikku started tauntingly, but upon turning to Ayane found her already getting back to her knees while pointing one hand at her charging the Sky Torn Blast.

Immediately, Rikku ducked off to the side to avoid the ninpo attack that was then unleashed. The thief then rolled back to her feet and faced Ayane, who had gotten back to her feet and held her tokkosho in position to be thrown, charging it with ninpo.

The kunoichi threw her weapon and Rikku ran to the side, allowing the tokkosho to fly past and detonate a moment later. Rikku turned to go for Ayane again, but she seemed intent now on not letting the thief get too close as she charged and fired another Torn Sky Blast. This time however, the attack hit Rikku dead on and threw her back into a large pipe hard. Rikku was still on her feet, but by the time she got through the shock of the impact to look at Ayane again, the kunoichi's tokkosho suddenly stabbed into the pipe right next to her, with no time to dodge what was coming.

Once again, the tokkosho detonated a powerful ninpo explosion that hit Rikku full force and threw her to the side and off a small edge to a lower platform. From there, it took Rikku a moment to get back to her feet as she stumbled and put a hand to her head. Shaking the intense dizziness, Rikku looked up at Ayane as she stood at the edge of the higher platform with her tokkosho once again in her hand as she looked down at her opponent. "You were saying?" She questioned, her temper running high with all of Rikku's taunts and sarcastic quips.

Rikku cringed slightly as she took a deep, steadying breath. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep fighting like this, which meant it was time for her to move on to plan B. Crossing her arms in front of her, Rikku began glowing brightly as she began to switch to another Dressphere. Ayane had yet to see any of Rikku's other Dresspheres, but she wasn't keen on letting Rikku try to better her odds.

With that thought in mind, Ayane jumped down at Rikku and swung down with her tokkosho, but just before she hit, Rikku's change was completed and her attack was blocked by Rikku's new weapon, and Ayane immediately backed away in order to get a better look at what she was now dealing with.

Instead of her thief outfit, Rikku was now dressed in a brown Lolita dress with a red corset and armor plate on her right shoulder, while in her hand she now held a large green sword with a floral pattern spiraling over it in replacement of her previous dual knives. Ayane couldn't know what special abilities this new form would grant Rikku, and so she put herself in a defensive stance and waited to see what kind of move Rikku would use first.

Given the time to prep, Rikku took a deep breath as she lifted her sword up at her side with the blade facing up. And then - with a quick flick of her wrist - turned the sword blade down and activated the Lolita Dressphere's first ability, the Flametongue Swordplay.

And with the Swordplay ability active, Rikku stretched one leg back forward and charged for Ayane. Holding her ground, Ayane waited until Rikku got close and swung her burning blade across at her and then flipped back just in time to dodge the attack and then pounce forward again to strike her with the tokkosho in the instant after Rikku's miss.

However, instead of trying to use her own strength to stop her blade's momentum, Rikku let her sword run into the ground and then use it as leverage to lift her up over Ayane's strike and kick her in the face with both feet to knock the kunoichi off balance. After that, Rikku landed back on the ground. pulled her burning sword out of the ground, and brought it around to strike Ayane full force.

Because of that, Ayane was thrown back into the wall of the ledge and fell on the floor. Rikku ran at her again and swung her sword down again, but Ayane rolled out of the way and back to her feet facing Rikku. Rikku swung her sword up at her, but this time Ayane parried the attack with her tokkosho and quickly swung it down on Rikku. Rikku took the hit, but kept her balance and brandished her sword for another Swordplay as it became covered in ice. Ayane swung her tokkosho once more, and Rikku swung her sword up to clash with it. Their weapons locked against one another, but when Ayane realized that her tokkosho was freezing over from contact with the icy blade, she pulled back and back-flipped several times to get some distance.

When she stopped though, she saw Rikku spin around and lift her Ice Braded blade high before bringing it crashing down on the ground, from where a rush of ice spread across the ground at Ayane. Ayane cartwheeled to the side out of the way in time and then ran back at Rikku again. But as she did, Rikku used yet another Swordplay ability coat the blade in electricity.

And while Ayane was still approaching, Rikku pulled the lightning clad sword back and swung it forward, unleashing a powerful bolt at Ayane. Reacting quickly, Ayane jumped up and over the lightning and dropped down over Rikku, ready to strike. But this had been just what Rikku had wanted, and her blade was covered in ice once more and waited for the perfect moment to swing upward at the kunoichi.

Unable to dodge, Ayane blocked the incoming attack with her tokkosho, but was still struck hard high into the air, and her weapon froze over almost completely. And as Ayane was falling back down, Rikku pulled her sword back once more as she prepared one more new ability. "Mad Rush!" With a strong call, Rikku then burst forward at Ayane and swung her sword at her enemy with all her strength at once.

Ayane curled up as she fell and saw this coming, putting her tokkosho in front of her to defend as much as possible. At that moment, she was struck with the incredibly powerful attack and her tokkosho shattered as she fell back and bounced across the floor, almost falling over a tall ledge. Ayane slowly pushed herself back to her feet and looked down at her broken weapon, and then at Rikku who stood still with her sword resting on her shoulder, obviously relaxed now that she had broken the kunoichi's main weapon.

The smirk Ayane saw on Rikku's face brought an angry scowl to hers, and she put the broken tokkosho away and moved forward, picking up to a run at Rikku yet again. But Rikku didn't seem worried by this and held her ground. Rikku held back her blade and utilized the Flametongue Swordplay, and once Ayane came within range, swung it across at her.

At that moment, Ayane dropped herself low, sliding under Rikku's sword and kicking her feet out from under her. Rikku quickly stabbed her sword into the ground to push herself up and flip back onto her feet, but when she turned to face the kunoichi again, she found that she had drawn a new weapon, the Fuma Kodachi dual blades. Ayane attacked Rikku, and though the lolita tried to block with her sword, it was too large and heavy to maneuver fast enough for the continuous string of attacks Ayane's fuma kodachi allowed her to perform, and so she quickly broke through.

Once she had, Ayane cut Rikku several times before jumping up and kicking off of her chest with both legs and shoving her to the ground. Rikku rolled back to a knee and gritted her teeth. The lolita dressphere forwent all defense in order to gain immense power without greatly diminishing speed, but that meant that it became a hindrance the moment she was put on the defensive. As Ayane charged at Rikku again, she reacted by raising her lolita blade tip down and utilizing Ice Brand again. Ayane jumped at Rikku and made to bring her fuma kodachi down on top of her, but she stabbed her sword into the floor and erected a wall of ice between them, blocking the kunoichi's attack.

Ayane moved back and saw that Rikku was switching out her dressphere again. Pointing a hand forward, she shot a Sky Torn Blast at Rikku through the wall of ice in hopes of striking her down before she could finish the transformation. But Rikku's dressphere exchange finished as she launched the ninpo attack and she saw her enemy leap into the air just as the Sky Torn Blast busted through her ice wall.

Looking up, Ayane jumped back as Rikku fell down at her with a rapier pointed down at her. Her new dressphere gave her a red dress with long brown boots and a red cap with a white feather. With her Spell Sword dressphere, Rikku ran one hand over her rapier blade and channeled magic through it. Pointing the rapier's tip at Ayane, Rikku let loose three shots of Fire that spiraled at the kunoichi from different angles.

Quickly, Ayane charged past the Fire spells as they converged and struck the ground where she had been, and Rikku charged in response. The red mage lunged forward with her rapier and Ayane blocked with one of her blades. As Rikku skidded off to the other side of the kunoichi, she readied a Blizzard spell and threw it at Ayane with a flick of her wrist, catching Ayane off guard from the close range spell and opening her up to attack.

Rikku jabbed at Ayane with her rapier to knock her even more off balance and then delivered three consecutive slashes to her opponent. But with the fourth swing, Ayane regained her bearings and parried the rapier. Rikku quickly raised her other hand and readied another Fire spell, but was caught by surprised when Ayane pulled even closer to her instead of backing away and looped an arm around hers to keep her in place and placed the other directly on her chest, and Rikku realized with sudden horror what she was doing. From perfect point blank range, Ayane charged her Sky Torn Blast and let it rip.

But in a frantic hurry, Rikku spun her rapier around and knocked Ayane's hand up to the side, but only enough to where the Sky Torn Blast struck her shoulder instead of her chest. Getting sent spinning from the point blank blast, Rikku landed hard on her back several meters from Ayane, except that the kunoichi was already closing the space between them again.

Thinking fast, Rikku used the spell Float to lift herself up off the ground faster than she could have normally and used her rapier to block the following strikes of Ayane's Fuma Kodachi. Wanting to get some distance after the close call with the Sky Torn Blast, Rikku lifted her leg and kicked off of Ayane's chest, the Float spell allowing her to fly far away and land softly at the edge of their current platform before she let the spell drop.

Every time Rikku thought she was getting an advantage, Ayane just pushed harder and broke through. But all her Dresspheres so far were simply a pretense for her strongest weapon anyways. "You just don't know when to quit do you?" Ayane questioned Rikku angrily.

"Why would I want to quit when I'm having so much fun?" Rikku replied mockingly, intentionally pulling at the kunoichi's temper.

"You think this is fun!?" Ayane grew more and more angry and charged at Rikku again. "This isn't a game! Stop acting like you live in some kind of fantasy world!"

Rikku smirked at Ayane's rage and charged a few spells through her blade, and unleashed spells of Fire and Blizzard at her as she approached. "Fantasy land, huh?" She repeated and then unleashed a quick Thunder spell as Ayane dodged the Fire and Blizzard, and the spell struck her back.

In that moment, Rikku once again switched out Dresspheres, and when Ayane got back to her feet and looked forward, she took in this newest form. Rikku was now dressed in a ninja garb of black, gold, and red, a mask covering her mouth and nose, and a katana held in each hand.

Taking a few steps forward, Rikku spoke once more. "If that's what you think, then maybe I'll just have to convince you that _this_ fantasy... is real." She told Ayane, and in the next second, Rikku vanished before Ayane's eyes.

Ayane was taken a back and looked all around her to try and find the ninja Rikku, but it was no use, Rikku had used the spell Vanish to make herself invisible to the naked eye. Realizing she could no longer track her opponent by sight, Ayane became immediately defensive and listened intently for the sound of Rikku's footsteps.

And yet to her dismay, the kunoichi heard nothing before she felt a blade strike her back. Ayane stumbled forward and turned around despite knowing she would see nothing there "What the-" Ayane whispered, but before she could finish her thought, felt Rikku's blades strike her twice more from her left, making her stumble again, but as quickly as she could, Ayane swung her fuma kodachi at the space the attacks came from, but made no contact.

Rikku had not just masked her presence with Vanish, she had also added the spell Sneak to mask all sound. The two spells together created the perfect camouflage and made it impossible to tell where the ninja was. And with that absolute security, Rikku completely let loose on Ayane.

Ayane continued to be hit by Rikku's invisible attacks while swinging her fuma kodachi every which way in an attempt to catch her target and discover where she was, but every time a blade caught her from a random direction and she flailed at where it came from, she just hit air and was quickly struck again from another angle.

As the onslaught continued, it truly seemed that Rikku had Ayane beat this time. But when the sudden sounds of machine gun fire rang out, Rikku's Vanish was broken as she was shot back. Surprised by the save, Ayane looked up to see who it was, finding a blonde woman drop down next to her with numerous kinds of fire arms strapped to her body along with the submachine gun in her hand she had used to shot Rikku as well as a set of heat vision goggles that had allowed her to accurately attack the ninja even with Vanish in effect.

"You okay?" The woman asked Ayane as she pushed the heat vision goggle to her forehead.

Part of Ayane wanted to ask where she'd come from, but her sense of urgency with the current battle overrode her confusion, and she simply nodded to the CIA agent. "Yeah, good timing, Irene." She said before looking back to Rikku as the ninja got back to her feet, reevaluating her situation now that she was outnumbered.

She didn't have any more time to waste. Now that she had cycled through all her main Dresspheres, she had but one form left to take. First, Rikku reverted to her Thief Dressphere, and immediately after, activated her final Dressphere switch.

Ayane raised her arm to use her ninpo before Rikku could complete the transformation, but Irene held out an arm to stop her, giving her a nod to indicate it was fine. Ayane felt uneasy about it, but she stayed put and watched as Rikku was enveloped in a bright light and lifted off the ground as a large form was brought up underneath her. Rikku was situated on top of the machine and the light surrounding them faded to show off the special Machina Maw Dressphere in all its glory.

Grabbing hold of the controls, Rikku charged straight for Ayane and Irene and stomped one of the Maw's legs down at them. They both rolled out of the way in different directions and readied themselves for the final round. Irene turned and fired her submachine gun at Rikku, but she tapped a few buttons on the right side panel and activated Protector to shield her from the bullets followed by shooting a Howitzer shell from the left at Ayane before she could strike.

While Ayane got away from the blast, Rikku piloted her mech and punched directly at Irene, smashing the right leg into her and throwing her off an edge. The Kunoichi was worried about her, but focused on Rikku and shot her Torn Sky Blast at the Machina Maw. Rikku punched the controls and the Machina Maw jumped up over the blast, but just as she did, a missile shot up over the edge she'd sent Irene and turned mid flight to target her. Unable to maneuver in the air, the missile struck the side of the Machina Maw and exploded violently. The machine rocked, but stayed upright as it hit the ground, and then Ayane leapt overhead to attack from above.

But surprisingly, Rikku punched a single button and she was suddenly flung directly up at Ayane. Using the spring of the ejection system, Rikku slammed her elbow into Ayane and threw her in front of the Machina Maw as she fell right back down to the pilot seat and quickly fired a Homing Ray at her. The kunoichi jumped back at the last second, but the attack simply curved up to match and scored a direct hit, blasting Ayane back into a large pipe.

But even more surprising, Ayane stabbed her Fuma Kodachi into the pipe before she fell and flipped herself around to plant her feet on the side and push off it back towards Rikku. The Machina pilot launched another missile at her, but then a grenade jumped up in front of Ayane - part of Irene's arsenal - and she punched the pocket explosive directly at the incoming missile, causing both to blow up in the middle and provide a thick cover as Ayane swooped through the smoke and between the legs of the Machina Maw.

Rikku heard the sound of metal against metal and knew that Ayane was targeting the joints in her machine's legs, trying to disable it. She jumped to the right to avoid that, but she was then met by sudden fire from Irene, who had climbed her way back up and began firing with her submachine gun again. Rikku's earlier Protector was absorbing some of the impact, but it was still doing damage.

And at the same time, Irene was approaching from in front of her again. "Didn't think it'd be this difficult keeping up with both of them." Rikku contemplated out loud and then began clicking in her next command for the Machina Maw.

Before Ayane got too close, Rikku held on tight to her machina and it jumped high into the air, making a single flip midair over the kunoichi before coming back down, and coming back down hard. Cracking into the stone they stood on, Rikku used the Machina Maw's Shockstorm attack and sent a rush of energy in all directions, sending both the CIA agent and the kunoichi spinning onto their backs as well stunning them to grant a moment of freedom for Rikku's next move.

"Why don't you take a little nap." Rikku jibed and fired off a Sleep Shell at Ayane, seeing Irene and her powerful firearms as the bigger threat she should deal with first.

The Sleep Shell struck its target easy, and Ayane hit a wall before dropping unconscious. Rikku turned her focus back to Irene as the agent got to her feet and began running around while continuing to shoot her submachine gun, focusing on the right leg, likely aiming to add to what damage Ayane had scored earlier.

But Rikku didn't have time to play around, and fired off another Homing Ray so that Irene's movement wouldn't be an issue. Irene in turned tried shooting down the ray, but it's irregular movement and white glare made shooting it down near impossible. So instead, Irene switched up her movement and charged directly at Rikku and the Machina Maw, all the while shooting at her.

Seeming little more than a desperate act, Rikku punched in the command to fire another missile straight ahead to put her right between two powerful blasts. Just as she did, Irene's submachine gun ran out of ammo and made only a light click sound. But Irene simply tossed the empty gun aside and grabbed for the handguns strapped to her thighs and then jumped up, surprising Rikku as she got over the incoming missile in front of her and kicked off of it directly at her in the pilot's seat.

The seemingly desperate act of charging head-first was revealed to have been planned as the missile in front then collided with the Homing Ray behind. Both blew and the blast gave Irene's jump at Rikku more speed and force. To keep from being tackled away from her machina, Rikku hit her ejection button again to spring her straight up into the air; but even that may have been planned by Irene, as the agent didn't miss a step and fired her two handguns down at the Machina Maw's control panels as she flew over them, then rolled to her feet on the other side.

Rikku fell back to her pilot seat and gritted her teeth at seeing the left leg control panel completely shot. It didn't effect movement, but she couldn't fire it's missiles anymore, and the right leg had taken a lot of damage. "Alright, you..." Rikku started as she turned the Machina Maw to face Irene again. "No more little miss 'nice Al Bhed'."

With that, Rikku started putting in the command to use the Machina Maw's strongest attack, the Vajra. Realizing something big was coming, Irene dropped her handguns and grabbed for her last big gun - a rocket launcher - and took aim.

But when she pulled the trigger and let the rocket fly, the Machina Maw jumped high into the air, letting the rocket pass by underneath it and hit a far wall. Up above, Rikku's machination charged up a huge amount of energy and aimed it down at her. Irene clenched her teeth with the knowledge that there was no avoiding that blast.

But just when she thought she was done for, a Torn Sky Blast shot up from the side and busted Vajra's charger. The built up energy disappeared, Rikku and the Machina Maw collapsed back to the ground, and Irene turned to see Ayane, on a knee with her held still held up from the Torn Sky Blast. Meeting the agent's gaze, Ayane shouted, "Finish this!"

Irene nodded, and the two of them turned and climbed up to the next platform above Rikku. "Where do you think-" the Al Bhed started, but stopped short as Irene turned to face her again and pull what could only be a detonator from her pocket.

The CIA agent flipped a switch and the sound of bombs arming could be heard from all around Rikku, and she realized exactly when Irene had the time to set those explosives. The reason she took so long to get back up after Rikku knocked her off the platform hadn't been an inability to find a route back up, but because she had used the opportunity to set up this trump card.

She went for the controls and moved the Machina Maw forward, but the damage done to its right leg finally ran too deep, and the knee joint gave in, making it impossible to run. Rikku looked up one last time at Irene as she brought her thumb down on the detonator's kill button. "Oh... Poopie." She groaned to herself.

Irene pressed the kill button, and explosions went off at all the walls of the platform Rikku was on, making the floor beneath her turn to rubble and sent her tumbling down with all of it. Rocked by the explosions and buried in the rubble, Irene and Ayane saw the Machina Maw vanish, proof they had definitely defeated their target.

And once the dust started to settle, the two made their way to the ground and found where Rikku lay, battered and beaten, but still alive as she unconsciously groaned in pain. Ayane and Irene exchanged a nod, and the kunoichi bent down to dig Rikku out of the rubble while Irene turned and pulled out a radio. "Target secured." She reported simply. "We're gonna need a chopper down here."

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE: And at last we're here, the first mostly original chapter of Dead Fantasy. Any feedback for this chapter will be greatly appreciated, so please tell me what you think and let me know if you think there is anything I could improve.**


	7. Dead Fantasy VII

_Dead Fantasy Novella VII_

Having landed just outside the city of Timber, Rinoa stood facing Rachel, who had gotten past Kairi when she meant to send everyone away to divide and conquer. But now that she was faced with fighting the Hunter herself, Rinoa had no intention of losing. And Rachel likewise prepared herself and readied her war hammer, eyeing the Sorceress as warily as if she were up an Archfiend, and then Rinoa made the first move.

Taking flight, the Sorceress flew around and circled Rachel many times before swooping in to attack at Rachel's right. The Hunter put up her hammer in defense, but was still knocked back by the attack. She put her feet back to the ground and grinded to a stop and then watched as Rinoa prepared and launched a fire spell. It was a low level spell, but Rinoa's Sorceress abilities made it large enough to swallow Rachel whole regardless. But instead of try to dodge, the Hunter fixed her stance and swung her hammer upwards with all her strength, shattering the fireball into a million harmless embers.

But as the fire spell was broken, the Sorceress appeared in its place and struck with her gunblade while Rachel was wide open, throwing her to the ground and sending her Pinwheel down on top of her. Rachel rolled out of the way of the Pinwheel, which burst with lightning magic as it hit the ground, and then got back to her feet while swinging her hammer as Rinoa made to attack with her gunblade again.

The Hunter deflected the blade and spun her hammer back around to strike Rinoa back, landing her first successful hit on the Sorceress. But Rinoa remained nearly unfazed as she used her wings to flip back to her feet before even hitting the ground and launching herself back at Rachel. The Hunter attacked again when she approached, but was countered and attacked several times, each strike of Rinoa's gunblade lifting her more and more off her feet until the Sorceress struck her overhead and then backed up before shooting her towards a cliff with another fire spell.

The Hunter yelled as she was thrown over the cliff and began falling towards the ocean below, but quickly recovered herself and used her Peluda Tail Whip to latch on to the cliffside and stop her descent and pulled on it to launch herself back up over the cliff's edge before spinning forward and bringing her war hammer crashing down, sending a shockwave blistering through the ground at Rinoa.

Rinoa shot herself into the air and then began charging a powerful Thunder spell, and Rachel charged her Blades of Ouroboros spell in reaction. Both released their attacks at the same time, and the torrent of lightning and ninpo all clashed between the fighters to cancel each other out in a brilliant flash that left thick smoke in its wake.

Rinoa watched and waited as the smoke began to lift and clear, and when she could just make out Rachel's form on the other side, set an aero spell to her Pinwheel and let it fly. Nearly invisible against the grey backdrop of smoke it came through, the Hunter almost didn't even notice the Pinwheel, but having wised up to the Sorceress's tactic of adding spells to disk, did not attempt to block it and instead dove to the side to avoid it and the subsequent twister before charging forward as the smoke cloud finally thinned enough to not obscure her line of sight.

Rinoa watched as the Hunter moved closer and held out her arm to retrieve her Pinwheel, but just then, the distant sound of an engine caught her attention and turned her head to see a fighter jet screeching straight for her. And as soon as she noticed it, the machine guns on the aircraft let loose a barrage of bullets that forced the Sorceress to take evasive action as bullets struck and shattered her pinwheel to pieces and grazed her arms and legs as she got out of its range.

As the fighter jet zoomed past the Sorceress, Rachel came to a stop and watched as the jet spun back around to begin firing at Rinoa yet again. She wasn't sure where the pilot had gotten her location from, but given how poorly she was doing against the Sorceress up to now, she could only be grateful for the assistance.

Rinoa moved again out of the way of the fighter jet's path and attempted to shoot it down with a thunder spell, but the pilot was skilled and preformed a barrel roll to avoid it before making its way back around again. And even worse, as it began to turn, Rinoa realized that this jet was not the only one coming to Rachel's aid, and saw dozens of jets beginning to close in from a distance.

"No way," The Sorceress muttered to herself in disbelief and climbed even higher into the air, not wanting to be anywhere near the range of Rachel's Ouroboros spell if she had to focus on taking down all of these jets.

And once the fighter jets all got close enough to start attacking her, Rinoa stopped climbing and began returning fire with her magic. While trying to stay out of the jets immediate flight paths, Rinoa cast spell after spell at the incoming aircraft in hopes of taking them down quickly, but the pilots showed they wouldn't be caught so easily, and all made virtually effortless maneuvers to avoid the attacks as they began passing her by and swarming around one another as they began turning back her way.  
And back on the ground, Rachel could barely tell what was happening in the air, but at least saw that the fighter jets were holding their own against the Sorceress. But when she heard an engine suddenly get closer to her, she turned to see a lone jet flying low over the ground to make its way past her. Understanding the intent almost immediately, Rachel smiled with satisfaction and shot her tail whip out in front of the jet so that it would snag onto the aircraft as it flew by and pull her off her feet.

With one good yank of the whip, the Hunter reeled herself in and planted her feet firmly on top of the jet while keeping hold it with her whip as if riding a bronco to keep from flying off as the pilot took the jet higher into the air so that they could join the battle.

And meanwhile, once Rinoa understood just how great the fighter jets' mobility was, the Sorceress cast Triple on herself and turned back around to face them once again. As the jets began circling Rinoa like vultures, one group broke off and began firing their guns again, but she was ready now. Instead of only dodging the bullet rain of the fighter jets, she returned their charge and held out her free hand to cast a strong thunder spell that - thanks to the added Triple effect - sprayed out in multiple directions at once, catching the pilots off guard and managing to strike one of the jet's wings, causing it to begin falling down, incapable of staying airborne.

And as the remaining aircraft flew past her, the Sorceress spread her wings wide to bring herself to a half before turning straight back around and giving chase to the fighter jets before they could turn back on her to continue attacking. She continued with her strategy and cast more fire and lightning spells at the aircraft as they hurried to avoid the less predictable barrage of tripled spells and scattered so she couldn't go after all of them. But instead of continuing after the group that now hurried to escape her, Rinoa continued straight forward at the encircling wall of fighter jets waiting their turn and this time stretched out her gunblade while beginning to spin and shield her body with her wings to become a human drill that pierced straight through another fighter jet to completely destroy it in mid air while also breaking free of the encirclement.

But as she stopped her spinning and attempted to put a little distance between her and the fighter jets, she looked forward and saw one last aircraft flying at her, and was even more surprised to see Rachel standing on top of it, holding herself in place with her tail whip in one hand and wielding her war hammer in the other as if prepared to joust.

Rachel held her hammer off to the side, but instead of meeting her challenge, Rinoa chose to make a dive for the ground and flip over to look up as almost all of the fighter jets began chasing after her again. Including the one Rachel rode on, the few jets closest to the Sorceress began firing their guns again, and this time the Sorceress curled herself up behind her wings to protect herself while simply allowing herself to continue backwards in freefall while she began to charge a more powerful spell that would surely be far more effective than the fire and thunder ones she'd used to far.

Once ready, Rinoa spread her wings and arm wide to cast a tripled Holy spell that sent dozens of shining lights shooting out in all directions before turning back in to attack the fighter jets from every angle and give them almost no place to run. Despite that however, as the fighter jets once again scrambled to avoid being blown to bits, the pilots truly showed just how skilled they were by soaring through even the narrowest of openings to get away from the rain of holy fire, all without bumping into one another as well, leaving only a select few that weren't fast enough or didn't have enough room to get out of the way being turned to rubble by Rinoa's spell.

Beginning to somewhat panic, Rinoa turned away from the jets to face the fast approaching ground beneath her and hastened her fall with her wings, only to alter her path at the last possible second to fly just over the ground. This time however, she was not surprised when none of the remaining pilots failed to pull their fighter jets out of their nosedives before crashing and continued after her, continuing their onslaught of machine fire.

And finally, one of the jets farther back managed to get a proper lock on the Sorceress and let loose one of the larger missiles attached to its wings, beginning to burn its own fuel and flying ahead of the other jets to close in on Rinoa. But when she took notice of the missile, Rinoa once again altered her flight path and climbed back into the sky, only for the large explosive to seek her out and alter its own course to continue after her.

Charging a powerful fire spell, Rinoa spun herself around to face the missile and blasted it apart before returning her focus to the fighter jets as they began to scatter in an attempt to surround her again. Not planning to let them have their way, the Sorceress directed herself back at one of the jets on her left and cast a tripled thunder spell at it, mentally directing each charge of lightning so that when the jet attempted to back away from the attack, it couldn't avoid the whole attack and one stream of lightning struck the missile it had under its right wing, causing it to detonate and blow the aircraft to smithereens.

Accomplishing that, Rinoa allowed the following fighter jets to fly past her without attacking, but when they had and their engine noise gone from right next to her, realized there was another approaching from the side, and only turned in time to see Rachel as she swung her hammer from atop a fighter jet and crashed the blunt weapon into the Sorceress with unimaginable power tucked behind it from Rachel's already inhuman brute strength combined with the speed of the jet racing forward, and Rinoa found it impossible to breath as the hammer smashed into her center and Rachel chucked her down towards the ground with her gunblade leaving her hand and falling down separately.

Unable to stop herself for lack of strength and breath, Rinoa curled herself up in her wings again to brace for impact as she crashed into ground and hit like a meteor, leaving a trail of razed rock in her wake. The instant Rinoa felt herself stop, she cast multiple cures on herself and only afterwards managed to gasp for air and cough from the damage she had taken.

Turning onto her hands and knees, Rinoa wheezed as she gather air into her oxygen deprived body and used whatever time she had at the moment to cast a more powerful tripled cure spell, and finally felt a fair amount of her strength return to her body.

Stumbling to her feet, Rinoa steadied herself despite her still shaking limbs and looked up at the fighter jets that appeared to have been waiting to see if she would actually recover from that attack at all. Still breathing heavily, Rinoa sneered up at her enemies and focused on her magic, casting Regen on herself, and then Haste. Once done, the Sorceress pointed a hand to the sky and began charging the Meltdown spell, and launched, with the Triple effect sending three huge spheres of energy flying up at the fighter jets, but didn't even wait for them to close the distance before flying back into action herself, and with haste boosting her speed two-fold, she in fact bypassed her own spells and rushed the jets ahead of them.

Without her pinwheel or her gunblade, Rinoa used blizzard to forge two spears of ice and held them forward to once again directly cleave through one of the jets before stopping in the middle of the buzzing jets that remained and launching multiple volleys of fire spells in every direction as the previous three meltdown spells finally closed in.

The fighter jets scattered yet again, but Rinoa used their evasive action against them with her speed and charged at each jet in turn while the number of fire and meltdown spells flew between them all and destroyed two more with point blank thunder spells. The Sorceress then heard the sound of missiles launching and turned to find two explosives trailing towards her, but didn't miss a beat and raced directly at them while creating more ice spears and flew right passed each missile with her enhanced speed and stabbing into them with ice before continuing immediately on and getting well out of the way before the damage caused them to detonate.

For a second, Rinoa came to a stop to take in exactly how many fighter jets remained, and saw she hadn't even halved the numbers yet, still more than a dozen of them left around her. And as she took that in, the jet that Rachel flew on approached again, but being well acquainted with the damage her hammer could deal out from there, the Sorceress had no intention of letting her get in another hit.

Casting a tripled fire spell, Rinoa force Rachel's fighter jet to dive down to avoid her magic, and then immediately pursued them from behind, catching up with them just before her haste spell wore off, Rinoa grabbed hold of Rachel's war hammer and fired another volley of fire spells into the aircraft she rode as she flew back, forcing the Hunter to let go of her weapon and jump to avoid being caught in her fighter jet's explosion.

Rinoa then left Rachel to freefall and dropped the hammer as she lacked the physical strength to wield it properly. The Sorceress then turned back as a few more fighter jets flew at her again with machine guns blazing, but hose hardly scared her anymore. She flew directly at the fighter jets and prepared to launch more spells at them, but before she could even do that, the fighter jets dispersed and started to circle her again while one of the other aircraft flew down below Rachel and allowed her to latch onto it with her tail whip like the first one and avoid crashing into the ground.

Rachel's fighter jet joined the remaining forces in their encirclement of the Sorceress, and then, one after another, the fighter jets turned in on Rinoa from multiple directions instead of just one and went straight for launching their missiles at her before turning away.

Now with multiple seeker missiles locked onto her, Rinoa had to return to evasive action while firing spells to destroy each missile as they approached. But as she continued, each missile she destroyed got closer to her than the last, and to make it worse for her, Rachel's fighter jet flew her ahead of Rinoa's path and she let loose another Blades of Ouroboros spell to put her directly between two different devastating attacks.

The Sorceress appeared to get worried again, but instead of panicking and getting caught in the two sided barrage, came to a complete stop and relaxed her wings to let herself freefall again, which resulted in Rachel's Blades of Ouroboros continuing forward to strike down a majority of the remaining missiles behind her, leaving only a couple more that the Sorceress had an easy time dispatching.

Once again, Rinoa came to a stop and looked around at the fighter jets circling around her, but could feel herself getting low on stamina despite her previous injuries being almost completely healed up. There were still more than a dozen fighter jets though, and Rinoa wasn't sure how much longer she could keep this up.

But just as she was beginning to think she might be beat here, a voice suddenly echoed out to her from the distance. "I'm here; Rinoa, fly up!"

At the voice's instruction, Rinoa didn't waste any time and flew straight up without stopping while looking to her right to see something white approaching the spot she'd just left behind. Recognizing the half-Esper Terra, she saw the girl launch a spell forward into the center of the fighter jets where it quickly began to expand with devastating brilliance and suck the surrounding aircraft in.

"Get away from that thing!" Realizing what was about to happen, Rachel screamed at her fighter jet's pilot and fly away as Terra's powerful Ultima spell grew to swallow up the surrounding enemies, with only a few lucky ones managing to escape the danger zone as the spell dissipated. But with the pilots now in the position to panic, Rinoa and Terra needed only share a single nod before flying around and rendering the remaining few scrap with their powerful magic before meeting up in the air and getting in behind the final fighter jet nearing the ground that had Rachel standing on top.

In one last desperate move, the Hunter charged her Blades of Ouroboros spell and fired it at the approaching magic users. But Terra moved ahead of Rinoa and used her own Riot Blades attack to stop the Hunter's attack and allow Rinoa to fly straight through the resulting smoke cloud and close the distance completely.

With one final thunder spell, the Sorceress destroyed the final fighter jet while Rachel once again jumped off and hit the ground close below, not even needing to tuck and roll at that height to avoid taking any damage. And having told her pilot where to go, Rachel skidded across the ground right past her war hammer, which she grabbed hold of to give her powerful opponent one last round.

But she had barely been able to hold her own against Rinoa one-on-one, so the two magic users knew they would make short work of her now. Dodging her attack as she got close, Terra struck the Hunter with her arms and continued past her as Rinoa advanced from the side with her gunblade back in hand and made a second hit before Rachel could recover.

Turning around, Terra then blasted the Hunter with her fire magic, and Rachel was thrown off her feet, skipping over the ground like a stone on water and lost hold of her hammer again. Finally feeling the pain of the battle up to now, Rachel slowly tried to get back up, but stopped when Rinoa's gunblade appeared in the corner of her eye.

Very slowly, the Hunter turned her head to look up at the women that had defeated her, and finally, the Sorceress took her gunblade and smashed the butt of the hilt into her temple, knocking her out cold.

At last able to relax, Rinoa took a deep breath and looked back at Terra, who reverted out of her Esper form. "Thanks for that. For a moment there I really thought I was a goner."

"When I noticed your magic, I knew I had to come and help." Terra replied. "Now what's going on exactly?"

"I'll explain later." Rinoa told her. "Right now we need to find a safe place to hide."

* * *

She had no idea how much time had passed since her fight, but when Tifa woke up, she was alone in an empty room, lying on a bed in the middle. She felt incredibly sore, but that much should have been expected after how many arrows had been in her body. And yet despite that her wounds seemed to be completely healed. Fighting the pain in every part her body, Tifa pulled herself to a sitting position and took a second look around the room she was in, and noticed a cabinet that appeared to be full of meds that seemed to indicate this was some kind of infirmary or hospital.

But that only confused the Monk. Her enemies had beaten her to the point of death, and yet they had healed her up immediately afterwards? From the very start, the motive behind their enemies' attack was unknown, but this development only seemed to call them into question even more.

"So, your awake?" But Tifa's thoughts were interrupted when she heard a voice speak up and looked to see Hitomi leaning against the now open door. "Good, then we can finally get down to business."


	8. Dead Fantasy VIII

_Dead Fantasy Novella VIII_

Somewhere in the city, after having left the beach she ended up on, Kairi walked along the edge of the roof of a skyscraper. Reaching one end, she then jumped off of it and landed on a much smaller building. Looking around, she walked to the edge and took something from her pocket for a moment. With a sigh, she gave a thought to her friends that were somewhere out there fighting for their lives and looked out across the block.

Just then however, Momiji and Ryu came down onto the building across the street from the one Kairi was on. "Well, looks like we finally found one of you." Momiji

Kairi, noticing them, turned to face them and then narrowed her eyes. She knew who they were and that they were allies of the others that attacked her and her friend, and so prepared for battle. Except this time, 'she' would not be the one fighting. Kairi unzipped her pink dress and dropped her belt, letting a white dress underneath flow in the wind. Finally, Kairi held out her hand and let a white feather drift in front of her.

"What's she up to?" Momiji wondered and began to move forward, but was stopped by Ryu.

"Wait," He told her.

Kairi took out her Destiny's Embrace Keyblade and held it high behind her. "Help me fight." Kairi whispered to herself, and then, with both hands clutching her Keyblade, Kairi struck down on the feather, which sent a misty field spreading out in all directions, as if marking the area as the battlefield.

"Now?" Momiji asked Ryu, who had held her back beforehand.

"Now," Ryu nodded, and took a step back as Momiji pulled out her Heavenly Dragon naginata from her back and pointed it at Kairi across the way.

A number of flower petals that had appeared when Kairi struck the feather then gathered behind her back, and in the next moment, a transformation occurred in Kairi that was completely different from the Valor form she used on the frozen lake. Her Keyblade switched out for the Lunar Eclipse Keyblade, a number of Keyblade wings appeared at her back where the flower petals had gathered, and most importantly, her hair changed from deep red to milky blonde.

She was no longer Kairi, but instead her Nobody persona: Namine. Taking that as the cue, Momiji leapt across the street at Namine, who jumped into the air and held herself there with the Keyblade wings, flying backwards. Jumping at her, Momiji made to swing her naginata down on her, but after clashing weapons a few times, Namine pushed the shrine maiden back down.

Momiji landed safely on her feet and then pulled out her Heavensong Bow, which as she pulled back was set on fire. She fired the arrow, but Namine dodged, and the arrow exploded as it struck the building behind her. Then, Namine flew forward at Momiji while avoiding any other arrows shot at her. When the nobody came too close, Momiji switched back to her naginata and defended against Namine's incoming strike, but was pushed back across the street to another roof while Namine landed on a car that she proceeded to drop down behind and flip at the shrine maiden.

Momiji jumped over the falling vehicle and swung her naginata down at Namine again. The Nobody blocked with her Keyblade wings, and then used high speed to avoid an exploding arrow Momiji knocked and fired down at close range. The shrine maiden fired another and missed, switching back to her naginata as the nobody charged back in. They clashed and then Namine suddenly summoned a secondary Keyblade to go along with Lunar Eclipse, and attacked swiftly with both weapons as well as her wings.

Namine knocked the shrine maiden into the air and then jumped over her, smashing her back down with her wings. She landed and pointed one of the wings at Momiji, and then a red laser shot at her, but as the shrine maiden rolled out of the way just in time and began to dodge and deflect more as they came, she made sure to throw a couple kunai at Namine as well.

Namine blocked them and then grabbed one of her Keyblade wings, bringing it up as a gun while the kunai fell to the ground next to her. However, before she could fire her Keyblade gun, the Kunai exploded right in her face, pushing her back, though she stayed strong on her feet.

Now, Namine brought up one of her wing blades and it vanished, surprising Momiji. "What?" She wondered, but then noticed something appear next to her out of the corner of her eye and blocked a sudden incoming strike from Namine's lunar eclipse Keyblade, though it vanished right afterward like an echo. "What is she-" Momiji began to ask, but was cut off as Namine began throwing away her other wings, causing three other lunar eclipse echoes to strike at her.

She blocked two, but the third struck the ground in front of her and caused an explosion, throwing her onto her back. All the remaining wings on Namine's back flew off and vanished, and a large number of Lunar Eclipse echoes appeared in the air surrounding Momiji as she got back to her feet. As the weapons assaulted her one by one, Momiji moved as quickly as she could to block each one despite coming from all angles.

"I've got you." Namine said out loud and had the rate of the attacks increase.

Momiji blocked one more, but then Namine's second Keyblade struck her back, and in reaction Momiji struck it back at Namine, who caught it in her hand and held it back as it began to exude smoke for some reason. Many of the remaining Lunar Eclipse echoes suddenly shot down at Momiji, and she flipped back to avoid them, and then jumped off another two before rushing down at Namine with her Izuna Falcon, knowing she was planning something bad.

But as she fell toward the Nobody, Namine tossed the Chaos Wing Keyblade into the air in front of her, pointed down. Seeing what was about to happen, Ryu suddenly rushed forward to intervene. "Watch out!" He called to Momiji, although it was too late for her to stop her falling body.

So instead, Ryu jumped through in the nick of time and grabbed Momiji, pushing her out of the way along with himself just before the Chaos Wing Keyblade stabbed down on their heads, instead striking the floor of the roof, leaving a red, blood-like stain around it.

"I'm okay, thanks." Momiji thanked Ryu as he let her back to her feet.

"Don't thank me just yet." Ryu said warily.

The shrine maiden and dragon ninja faced Namine again and saw the Chaos Wing Keyblade melt - for lack of a better term - into the red stain it had created, which began to bulge up at the center. Suddenly, a deep voice spoke from within the red. "It's been while since you last called me..." The voice said, and then with a whip of his arm, threw the red cloak from around his body and revealed himself to be Vincent Valentine. "...Namine." Vincent spoke to his old friend as he faced Namine's attackers. "Need some help I gather?"

Seeing the red draped gunman, Ryu stepped forward. "I'll take this one." He told Momiji and took out his sword while Momiji walked up next to him with a pair of sai.

Seeing this, Vincent began to walk towards them, with Namine behind him as her Keyblade wings came back to her. "We'll end this quickly." Vincent said, as if being here bored him.

"You got it." Namine replied, and a moment later, the two of them sprung back into action.

Bolting into a run, Vincent aimed his Cerberus pistol at Ryu and began firing. With trained precision, the dragon ninja cut down every bullet before they could land their mark, and when Vincent came close, he struck out, aiming his sword at the gunman's throat.

But at that moment, Namine sped passed Vincent and deflected his sword with Lunar Eclipse and then struck with her wingblades. The dragon ninja defended himself, but then Vincent leapt over the nobody's shoulder and smashed his steel-toed shoe square into his jaw.

Ryu staggered back as Vincent's feet hit the ground, but before he could line up another shot, Momiji ran at him with her sai. He brushed her first strike to the side with his gun and caught the second with his armored hand while Namine thrust Lunar Eclipse at her. The shrine maiden took the hit and doubled over, but Vincent backed away as Ryu took another swing at him from the side.

The dragon ninja pursued, but not before avoiding an attack from Namine and spin kicking her away. As he engaged Vincent Valentine, Momiji stood back up and struck out at the Nobody with her sai. Her first strike caught Namine's shoulder, but she defended the follow-ups and aimed one of the wingblade guns at the shrine maiden's head.

Momiji backflipped under the resulting laser beam and was forced to keep up evasive maneuvers as the Nobody continued to fire the lasers one after the other. The shrine maiden switched back to are naginata and broke through a small opening between the lasers to stab at Namine and strike her back. She flipped right back to her feet, but instead of charging back at Momiji, the Nobody switched targets and charged at Ryu while he grappled with Vincent.

Momiji warned him, and the dragon ninja turned to block and deflect Namine's first attack with Lunar Eclipse, then immediately turn back to Vincent as the gunman aimed for his head at point blank range. With lightning fast reflexes, Ryu struck the gun with his dragon sword and successfully sent the Cerberus pistol flying out of his hand and over the edge of the building they were on, and then struck out at the gunman directly.

But Vincent jumped over Ryu and grabbed his shoulders, twisting himself around and pulling the dragon ninja down as he rolled onto his back, lifted Ryu onto his feet, and launched him into the air. Vincent flipped back to his feet and signaled to Namine, who jumped onto his shoulder and pushed off her ally to fly up after him.

Once she did, Vincent turned to face Momiji as she swung her naginata at him and he defended with his gauntlet, skidded back several feet, and then held his hands out, using the materia he had to cast a thunder spell that hit the shrine maiden dead on, throwing her onto her back.

Namine met Ryu in the air and struck out at him multiple times with her Lunar Eclipse Keyblade, but he continued to hold out against her even airborne. Namine spun herself in a backflip as she twirled her ring of wingblades at the dragon ninja, finally catching him with the consecutive strikes and flipping him upside down, giving the nobody the chase to back up and utilize the special ability Sonic Blade. Rushing the dragon ninja, Namine thrust her Keyblade at Ryu and bypassed him several times, stopping on the other side and twisting around to attack from every angle before finally flying above him and striking back down hard into the concrete of the building roof below.

Momiji had gotten back up, but Vincent had already closed the distance and struck out at her several times with his knees and elbows before grabbing her and throwing her at Ryu Hayabusa just as her stood up, toppling both of them over again as Namine landed next Vincent.

Momiji and Ryu stood up once again and looked at their adversaries. It was becoming clear that the two of them together were a powerful combination, so their best hope was to separate them and take them down separately.

Ryu brandished his sword again while Momiji took out her Heavensong bow and shot one of her explosive arrows. In reaction, the gunman and nobody avoided the arrow as it zipped passed and detonated in the distance. At the same time, Namine tossed one of her wingblade guns to Vincent, allowing him to use it in place of his Cerberus as he charged their opponents, firing lasers at them while Namine held back and provided extra cover fire from a distance.

Ryu and Momiji took evasive action as the gunman approached and the shrine maiden switched back to her naginata again. She and Vincent charged at one another, but when the gunman lined up a close range shot at her, Momiji instead ducked down and slid forward, tripping Vincent up as Ryu ran around from the side, avoided Namine's lasers, and tackled the gunman before he even hit the ground, throwing both of them over the edge of the building.

"Vincent!" Namine called out for him, surprised by the tactical separation, but focused on Momiji when she threw a kunai at her feet, which promptly exploded and threw the nobody back.

As Vincent and Ryu fell off the building, they continued their fight, each one striking out with their weapon only for the other to push it aside. After many failed attempts to land a decisive blow, both fighters raised their legs and kicked each other's feet, the combined force launching them away from each other.

But while Ryu was thrown back into the empty building they had been falling from, Vincent was still approaching the ground. But with the room to move freely, Vincent took the wingblade from Namine and placed it under his feet, and used its own levitation function to act as a hoverboard, which stopped his decent just before hitting the ground and then fired its laser like an engine to thrust him forward, moving around the building to find his fallen Cerberus gun and grab it off the ground.

Meanwhile, Momiji had switched back to her sai and fought Namine at close range. It was difficult for the nobody to use her wingblades so close, so she was on the defensive, but she still wasn't making it easy for the shrine maiden as she blocked each sai strike with her Keyblade and looked for a chance to counter, and soon enough caught her with her Keyblade, smacked her back, and retook the advantage as she struck out with her wingblades.

Vincent circled around the building on the wingblade, and as he did, took shots at Ryu who was inside one of the offices held inside with Cerberus. The dragon ninja moved about inside, avoided the bullets that came at him or cutting them down while running toward the windows and crashing through one to jump out in front of the gunman and swing his sword at him.

Thinking fast, Vincent pulled up his feet to drag the wingblade between him and the dragon ninja and block the attack. After that, the gunman aimed his Cerberus passed the wingblade and fired a Ryu, the bullets hitting his arm and forcing him to jump off the wingblade and back into the building, but this time, Vincent followed after him and jumped into the office complex as well, taking the wingblade out from under his feet to use in tandem with Cerberus as he began shooting both bullets and lasers at the dragon ninja.

Ryu responded by kicking up the office desks around him and throwing them out at Vincent. The gunman ducked around to avoid them as they flew out the window while still keeping up his volley of projectiles, forcing both of them to stay on their toes as they slowly closed the distance between them and cleared the floor of office furniture. But then Vincent got an idea and pointed his gunblade straight up to fire a laser that pierced straight through all the floors to the roof where Namine and Momiji were still locked in battle.

Blocking a downward strike from the shrine maiden's naginata with her wingblades, both Namine and Momiji turned to look at the laser that sudden shot up through the roof beside them. Understanding immediately, the nobody pushed Momiji away and manipulated her wingblades to point them all down at random points behind her and started firing.

"No!" Momiji took out her bow and quickly fired an arrow at Namine to try and force her to stop, but the nobody utilized a reflect spell that stopped the arrow and protected her from the resulting explosion while her wingblades continued firing.

The lasers all pierced right through to where Vincent and Ryu were, and the onslaught of randomized lasers struck out in the space between the two fighters, ripping into the office furniture that Ryu had been throwing around, including the currently airborne desk that was reduced to splinters in mere seconds while everything else was made an unusable mess.

But with Ryu's powerful senses, he was able to avoid the lasers effortlessly and still rush at Vincent. He broke passed the field of lasers and struck at the gunman with all his strength, and though he blocked with the wingblade, the force of the attack pushed both of them back several feet.

And when they skidded to a stop, the dragon ninja reached out and grabbed Vincent's cloak, pulled him off his feet, and spun around before throwing him through the wall that separated the two halves of the office floor.

Despite having been chucked through a concrete wall though, Vincent showed his resilience and rolled back to his feet to immediately open fire with Cerberus again. But Ryu didn't even slow as he cut down every bullet and stabbed at gunman. Vincent ducked down and attempted to sweep Ryu's legs out from under him, but the dragon ninja jumped, spun around in the air, and brought his sword crashing back down on top of him.

Once again, the gunman blocked the sword with the wingblade, but that didn't stop the floor from cratering under the pressure and Vincent's knees from buckling. The gunman pushed back and aimed the wingblade at Ryu to fire a point blank laser that caught his waist, but the dragon ninja barely reacted to it, and pulled one of the kunai on his legs and threw it with incredible power into Vincent's shoulder.

Put off balance, the gunman was left open for Ryu as he stepped toward him and swung his sword up, getting a clean cut up his torso and putting the gunman on his back. Finally, Ryu grabbed Vincent and lifted him off the ground again, spinning around with him several times, and then throwing him straight up through the ceiling towards the roof.

Up top, Namine had stopped firing lasers at the lower floors and had Momiji on the ropes. Unable to keep up with the nobody's wingblades, the shrine maiden was tossed into the air and slammed back down with a strike from Lunar Eclipse.

Namine landed beside her and aimed one of her wingblades at her, ready to finish her off, but it was at that moment that Vincent came crashing back up through the roof and landed flat on his back, bloody and wounded. "Vincent!" Namine called to him, shocked at his defeat.

But it seemed the dragon ninja wasn't finished with him, as Ryu jumped up through the hole Vincent made and held his sword in position to stab him again as he fell down at the downed gunman.

Namine ignored Momiji and flew towards her ally, but saw she wouldn't reach him in time and held out her hand. "No, don't-" Vincent tried to stop Namine when he saw her, but his voice was cut off when she reversed her summoning and dismissed the gunman from the battlefield.

Thanks to this, when Ryu's sword struck down, it only met with the Chaos Wing Keyblade he'd been summoned with, which then disappeared to return to Namine as she struck out at him with both it and Lunar Eclipse.

Ryu blocked both blades and retaliated as he saw Momiji struggle back to her feet behind the nobody. Namine stepped back and held out both her Keyblades as the began to glow with golden energy before she charged forward again using Ars Arcanum to increase her power and struck out violently with her weapons.

Ryu defended against the onslaught almost perfectly however, and when the nobody's Keyblades lost their shine, he found an opening and pushed her Keyblade up over her head before delivering a powerful kick to Namine's stomach.

The nobody flew back towards Momiji, who then took her naginata and swung the polearm in her way, letting the nobody's back crash into the staff section. Namine's back bent at a distressing angle from the sudden stop and felt the air leave her lungs as her vision quickly clouded over.

The strength left her body, and all her Keyblades and wingblades disappeared. Momiji let the nobody drop and held her naginata at her side as Ryu walked up beside her. With no energy left, Namine's hair changed back from blonde to red as she reverted to Kairi, who then lost consciousness.

Standing over her, Momiji looked to Ryu with worry. "That Vincent Valentine could pose a serious problem."

"I know, but we can't do anything about it now. We have to move her." Ryu responded, picking Kairi up, before he and Momiji took off again. 


End file.
